It’s been a while since Antec put out a new series of products spanning their gaming and enthusiast-level lineups of chassis, power supplies, case fans, and CPU coolers. We came away from our CES coverage learning about the GX700 case, new renditions of the Eleven Hundred and P280 cases, and a new line of media products – portable speakers, headphones, stuff like that – but at PAX East, we were interested in finding out if Antec is looking to continue with DIY building as they have in the past.

We spent some time at Antec’s booth and got the lowdown on a few interesting core components that we can expect further in the year, and we also got to see some impressive builds inside of their “special edition” cases. Let’s start with how Antec is continuing its most known product categories, beginning with power supplies.

A few days before all this PAX East craziness, we were able to join nVidia in a press conference about their new mid-range GPU; the news was under embargo until just now, but for all our mid-range and entry-level system builders, now's the time to listen up - your GPU selection may be impacted by the release.

With the nVidia GTX 650 Ti Boost specs officially announced, we're here to briefly overview the new GPU and its theoretical performance against AMD's 7850 in the sub-$200 market.

In suit of our technological analysis of Star Citizen's high-end hardware utilization, we regrouped with Chris Roberts at PAX East 2013 to briefly discuss overall progression, PvP, the node-based networking framework, and more.

Roberts made an appearance in the final hours of the show and participated in a panel discussing crowd-sourced obstacles and benefits, titled "Going Back To The Future - Calling All Mechwarriors, Tribes and Star Citizens." After meeting up near the somewhat internet-famous Firefall and LoL statues (seen here), we journeyed up to the panel area to talk some Star Citizen; it quickly became evident that Roberts is a marked man in the games industry, with several excited fans greeting and thanking him for his efforts to revitalize the Space Sim genre. He's ambitious and dedicated, but every conversation sort of resonated a "no, thank you for supporting us" humble tone.

You'll find our video interview with Chris Roberts below, a recording of the panel, and discussion on Star Citizen's future.

One of the most refreshing aspects of covering large gaming/hardware events is the face-to-face interaction with vendors, providing an opportunity to really understand a company's philosophy (discussed here).

PAX East 2013 (which just ended - sad face) saw the return of Kingston Technology's oft-packed HyperX gaming booth. Flanked on two sides by crowds of attendees awaiting their chance to compete against the likes of Team EG SC2 pros, the booth made it clear that Kingston has a vested interest in the gaming industry.

Team EG, left-to-right: iNcontroL, IdrA, DeMusliM, Stephano.

Last year gaming peripherals developer PowerA ventured into mobile gaming controllers with the Moga Mobile, a small, Android-compatible controller that acts as a gaming interface for smartphones and tablets. PowerA now has a more mainstream gaming controller on the horizon called the Moga Pro, now modeled after the Xbox 360’s controller for better global familiarity. It’s not out until next month, but we were fortunate enough to get our hands on it at PAX East 2013. I sat down with product developer Sal Parra and learned more about PowerA’s support for console-like experiences on a mobile platform.

As you can see from our included images, the Moga Pro’s button layout mimics that of the Xbox 360 controller. Xbox’s controllers over the years haven’t changed much, unlike a console lineup such as Nintendo’s, so playing it safe here aims to minimize the learning curve. Personally, I found it easy to continue my console gaming with the Xbox controllers (even the clunky one that released with the original Xbox in 2001), so putting a Moga Pro in my hands didn’t throw me off at all.