Wireless Headsets and PC Cases Added To Vengeance Lineup

Subject: General Tech, Cases and Cooling | April 5, 2012 - 03:47 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: vengeance, headset, gaming, corsair, case

Corsair announced today that a new wireless headset and gaming PC case would be joining the ranks of the existing Vengeance lineup of headsets and keyboards. Making their initial debut at PAX East this weekend, the new Vengeance 2000 wireless headset and Vengeance C70 Case will be available for purchase later this year.

The Vengeance 2000 is Corsair’s latest headset that takes the brushed aluminum, 50mm drivers, and microfiber ear cups of the Vengeance 1500, adds some blue and white accents and then cuts the cord. In pace of the USB cord, Corsair utilizes 2.4 GHz wireless to deliver 5.1 and 7.1 virtual surround sound up to 40 feet away and with a battery life of 10 hours. The headset further features a noise canceling microphone and battery that can be recharged via micro USB cable.

From the wording of the press release, it sounds like the charging cable will only act as a power cable -- meaning it will not make the headset wired. The wireless 2.4GHz radio may be problematic for gamers living in areas with lots of 2.4GHz interference (like an apartment building with lots of WiFi devices and microwaves), and in that case the wired Vengeance 1500 would be a better choice. (We are attempting to verify the wireless only aspects and will update the article if we receive a response). Update: Corsair has clarified to us that the headset is always wireless -- the USB cable is only used for charging and firmware flashing.

Arriving with two carrying handles and an ammo box aesthetic, the Vengeance C70 is ready for the war against heat with space for up to 240mm radiators (they suggest the H100) on the top and bottom or 10 total case fans. The case further features a steel front panel, eight PCI-E slots, and two removable hard drive cages with space for three 2.5” or 3.5” drives (for a total of six hard drives). The PCI-E slots and other internals use standard Philips head screws.

The Vengeance C70 will be available in three colors: Military Green, Arctic White, Gunmetal Black. The external of the the case features large mesh grills over the fan areas. The front of the case features a honeycomb mesh for up to two fans, three 5.25” drive bays, and -- along the top -- two large buttons for power and reset with the power being the large red button (which would be difficult to resist pressing all the time). It also houses microphone and headphone jacks, and two USB 3.0 ports. All three C70 cases have two carrying handles on the top that fold down into recessed parts of the case when not being used.

The two new Vengeance entrants will be available this summer. The C70 will be available for purchase soonest -- as early as May -- with an MSRP of $139 USD. Meanwhile, the Vengeance 2000 wireless headset has an MSRP of $149 USD and will be available in June. More information on Corsair’s entire Vengeance gaming lineup is available here.

Podcast #191 - ASUS AMD GPU Roundup, IMFT Flash, and tons of news from MWC!

Subject: Editorial, General Tech | February 29, 2012 - 06:51 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: vengeance, tegra, podcast, nvidia, MWC, Intel, corsair, asus, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #191 - 02/29/2012

Join us this week as we talk about our ASUS AMD GPU Roundup, IMFT Flash, and tons of news from MWC!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:05:06

Program Schedule: 

1. 0:00:32 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:01:38 Contest Reminder - http://pcper.com/contest
6. 0:03:35 SilverStone TJ08-E Micro-ATX Tower Enclosure Review
7. 0:05:00 Asus DirectCU and DirectCU II for AMD: 6850, 6870, 6950, and 6970 Boards Under the Microscope
8. 0:16:15 AMD Updates the FX Line: Some Thoughts on Future Moves for AMD
9. 0:22:55 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
   
10. 0:23:45 Intel Ivy Bridge delay is confirmed essentially
11. 0:27:30 GPU sales look a little down in the month
12. 0:31:13 Could this new research lead to light speed RAM?
13. 0:33:45 Just Delivered: Corsair Vengeance K90, K60, M90, M60 Keyboards and Mice
14. 0:36:30 Intel / Micron Flash Technology Venture Expands, Micron Assumes Two Plants
15. 0:40:30 Qualcomm Shipped Most Smartphone and Tablet GPUs in 2011
16. 0:42:20 MWC 12: Samsung to compete with Tegra on quad-core CPU
17. 0:45:20 MWC 12: Huawei enters the mobile SoC world with quad-core K3V2
18. 0:47:00 Nokia World's Largest Windows Phone OS Smartphone Vendor in Q4 2011
19. 0:49:00 MWC 12: Intel branded, Atom-powered smartphone to be sold by Orange
20. 0:51:30 MWC 12: ASUS Unveils Infinity Tablets, Dockable Smartphone
21. 0:55:00 MWC 12: Lots of industry support for NVIDIA DirectTouch
22. 0:56:55 MWC 12: NVIDIA Roadmap Outlines Tegra's Future Including 4G and Die Shrink
23. Contest Reminder - http://pcper.com/contest
24. 1:00:00 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: A phone that shows pictures of hotels
    2. Jeremy: Audio steganography
    1. Josh: If you do wanna go AMD... cheaply
    2. Allyn: CircuitLab
25. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
26. http://pcper.com/podcast   
27. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
28. Closing

Just Delivered: Corsair Vengeance K90, K60, M90, M60 Keyboards and Mice

Subject: General Tech | February 24, 2012 - 06:46 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: vengeance, mouse, m90, m60, keyboard, k90, k60, just delivered, hid, corsair

Just Delivered is a section of PC Perspective where we share some of the goodies that pass through our labs that may or may not see a review, but are pretty cool none the less.

Corsair does just about everything now - memory modules, power supplies, cases, SSDs, headphones, speakers, water coolers, functional LED umbrellas and now keyboards and mice.  And just like we have seen when Corsair entered new markets previously, they took their time to do it right.  The Vengeance line of keyboards and mice offer two dedicated series for gamers of different persuasions: the K90 and M90 for MMO players and the K60 and M60 for predominantly FPS users.

The new keyboards consist MOSTLY of Cherry MX Red switches (which you can read more about here in our recent Rosewill keyboard roundup) and are generally very well built.  The mice have adjustable DPIs, lights and lots of button.  What follows is a pictorial preview of these gorgeous devices before our review sometime in the near future!  Enjoy!!

The K60 comes with a removable left hand rest for your frequent gaming as well as replaceable WASD keys that have a rubber texture to them and are slightly angled to keep your fingers from slipping out during those INTENSE gaming moments.

Corsair tends to think of the customer first so they were sure to include a tool to remove the keys rather than telling you to use a flat head screwdriver from your garage.

One of my favorite features is the Windows button disable key up there to prevent you from accidently hitting that during gameplay.

See a lot more photos of these devices in our full post!!

16GB of DDR3-1600? Corsair has a couple of kits for that

Subject: General Tech | December 5, 2011 - 04:50 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: corsair, vengeance, vengeance lp, ddr3-1600, quad channel

With the arrival of quad-channel memory on the X79 chipset, 16GB kits are arriving on the shelves of suppliers.  This amount of memory was once only found on servers but why shouldn't you benefit from a huge pool of RAM on your enthusiast machine.  Corsair has two Vengeance kits on the market, the $90 Vengeance kit @ 9-9-9-24 and the Vengeance LP kit with low profile heatspreaders and timings @ 8-8-8-24 which will cost you about $150.  Interestingly the timings did not seem to effect the benchmarks in a meaningful way, the extra bandwidth available hides the difference though kits with much looser timing may well have an effect.  Speed does still matter as there were improvements on most of the benchmarks once the kits were overclocked.  Read on to see the numbers.

"Corsair's quad-channel Vengeance memory modules are designed to work with Intel's new Sandy Bridge-E platform. We put two Vengeance kits to the test to see if running DDR3 memory in quad-channel really make all that much of a difference in practical applications like gaming."

Here are some more Memory articles from around the web:

Memory

• Kingston HyperX Genesis Quad Channel 2400MHz DDR3 Review @ HardwareHeaven
• Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 Low Voltage 1600MHz Review @ Legit Reviews
• GeIL EVO CORSA PC3-19200 16GB @ Tweaktown
• Patriot Division 4 Viper Xtreme PC3-12800 16GB Kit @ Tweaktown
• Corsair Vengeance PC3-15000 16GB Kit @ Tweaktown
• G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3-1866MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit Review @ Neoseeker
• Corsair Vengeance 32GB (4x4GB kit x 2) 1600MHz Quad Channel DDR3 @ Hi Tech Legion

Corsair Announces Vengeance High-Performance Memory for Laptops

Subject: Memory, Mobile | December 1, 2011 - 12:09 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: corsair, vengeance, laptop memory, ddr3-1600, ddr3-1866

FREMONT, California — December 1st, 2011 — Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced a line of high-performance memory upgrade kits for power laptop users.

Operating at speeds of 1600MHz and 1866MHz, the new Vengeance laptop memory upgrade kits are an ideal solution for notebooks equipped with a 2nd Generation Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processor. Vengeance laptop memory is designed to be plug-and-play, with no BIOS adjustments needed to instantly take advantage of the faster memory speed.

The new Vengeance high-performance memory upgrade kits for laptops are designed to work with any PC or notebook which accepts standard DDR3 SODIMMs, and are backward compatible with notebooks and laptops which use first-generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors. Even on older notebooks, customers can still take advantage of the ability to upgrade to 8GB of memory using only two memory slots, and enjoy the confidence of Corsair's renowned service and support.

"As more complex applications and games are available in the market, many laptop users are looking for an easy way to improve their system performance in order to have the best experience." said Thi La, Vice President of Memory Products at Corsair. "Our new Vengeance high-performance laptop memory kits allow performance-minded customers to boost their memory performance and capacity in an instant." 

Just Delivered: Corsair Vengeance Gaming Headsets

Subject: General Tech | November 28, 2011 - 10:47 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: vengeance, corsair

Just Delivered is a new section of PC Perspective where we share some of the goodies that pass through our labs that may or may not see a review, but are pretty cool none the less.

Arriving just in time for my Thanksgiving break is a rather large but light box. Nestled inside lots of air bags are two boxes from popular computer case and peripheral maker Corsair. Specifically, the boxes include two pairs of Corsair's Vengeance series headsets, the Vengeance 1300 and 1500.

Both of the Corsair Vengeance headsets are gaming headsets with full closed ear or circumaural headphones and noise canceling unidirectional condenser microphones. The 1300 is an analog headset with two 3.5 mm jacks for the headphones and microphone while the 1500 is a USB powered 7.1 channel headset. The 1500 uses a single USB connection to deliver both headphone audio and the microphone audio and is stated to draw up to 250 mW from the USB port.

Both the Vengeance 1300 and 1500 have rotating ear cups that are also able to angle slightly up and down to fit comfortably in addition to the headband being able to extend or contract. The outside of the 1500 sports metal accents whereas the 1300 is plastic, making it a bit lighter, but they are both much lighter than they look to be. Further, both the 1300 and 1500 headsets have (non-removable) control pods on the 3 meter long cable to mute/un-mute the microphone and increase or decrease the volume level.

Initial impressions are positive, but it will certainly be interesting to see how they sound compared to other budget headsets, and whether or not they will live up to the same success that the HS1 and HS1A Corsair headsets held.  Read on to see more photos of the Corsair gear!

The Vengeance 1500 headset and control pod.

Corsair offers your ears two kinds of Vengeance

Subject: General Tech | November 18, 2011 - 12:47 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: audio, gaming headset, corsair, vengeance, vengeance 1300, vengeance 1500

The Vengeance 1500 USB gaming headset is the higher end model of their newly released headsets, with 5.1/7.1 channel sound, a 50mm driver and Dolby Digital support.  The Vengeance 1300 uses analog plugs, not USB but still offers 5.1 surround and 50mm drivers.  As the 1300 is analog it does not require drivers whereas the 1500 does require software in order to emulate 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound.  From Neoseeker's findings, you need a discrete sound card that supports Dolby Surround in order to get the most out of the 1300, while the 1500 will sound the same regardless thanks to its USB connection and software.

"We've got two of Corsair's newest headsets in the Neo labs today, the Vengeance 1500 and Vengeance 1300. The higher-end model, the Vengeance 1500, supports audio formats such as Dolby Digital and Virtual 7.1 Surround. The Vengeance 1300 on the other hand is an analog headset that performs best when paired with a high-end audio card that can push the unit to its threshold. Find out if any of these options are suitable for your audio headphone needs while you're camping in front of the computer (or in your game)."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Audio Corner

• Blue Snowflake Microphone Review @ Tech-Reviews
• Corsair Vengeance 1500 7.1 USB Gaming Headset Review @ HardwareHeaven
• CM Storm Sirus True 5.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset Review @ HardwareHeave
• Corsair Vengeance 1100 Gaming Headset @ kitguru
• Arctic E461-BM Earphone @Bjorn3d
• Turtle Beach Ear Force X12 Xbox 360 Headset @ kitguru
• Tritton Detonator XBOX 360 Headset Review @ HardwareHeaven