Week of June 22, 2008

"Gaming peripherals are something that not many hardware enthusiasts spend much time on; as the title suggests, it's more of a gamer thing. However, many underestimate what effect a simple mouse or keyboard upgrade can have on their PC usage in terms of comfort and features. The peripheral overlooked most of al however, is the mouse mat. From it's humble beginnings as a poorly held-in-place piece of foam, gaming mouse mats were born and today, I'm testing one that's been causing a stir with it's flashy looks; bring on, the Roccat Sense: Adrenalin Blue."

"...Gigabyte has produced yet another great motherboard. It's feature packed, offers great performance and excellent overclocking ability. "

CLICK HERE FOR Gigabyte GA-EP45 DQ6 Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"We recently reviewed Microsoft's Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 and found that it was respectable mouse for the average enthusiast. Now we are taking a close look at Microsoft's Wireless Laser Mouse 7000. The 7000 has the same high definition laser and some other common features of the 6000. For about 20 more dollars, what extra features come with the 7000 model? Let's run this rodent through the gauntlet and see what sets it apart."

CLICK HERE FOR Microsoft Wireless Mouse 7000 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Bought yourself a brand new Intel 45nm CPU? Those Wolfdale CPUs are the ideal candidate for some overclocking action. In this article we help you extract the most from it by selecting the correct motherboard. Choose the wrong one and you are stuck at low overclock, pick the right one and the sky is the limit!"

Despite the Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR3-1600 dual channel memory kit having fairly loose timings (9-9-9-37), it manages to keep pace with other kits rated much more aggressively (7-7-7-18). The performance at 1600MHz and higher was just fine, the only issue I had was that getting there was not as easy as with other kits. Of the five kits used in this review, the one from Kingston was the only one to lack an XMP profile in SPD.

How many times do you get than you bargained for? Sure, when you're taking a risk you can end up worse of then you started. But we're talking about the other end of the spectrum. When was the last time you went shopping for something only to realize it was on sale or it was a two-for-one day? It's times like these that you really feel like you got your money's worth. In the world of computing these feelings occur even less often. Not because of lack of deals or overpriced equipment but rather the pace of innovation. What is a good deal today will be next to nothing in a few months making the decision of when to buy a daunting one.

A lot of people have been building their own home servers based upon Ubuntu, a user friendly Linux distribution. The brave souls among them even tweaked some bits on their completed builds. Now, it's time to take it a step further.

In this next article we'll be adding a bit of functionality to our server, transforming it into a router with an integrated firewall. But of course you can also build a entirely new box for it, like I did. I used a minimal Debian install so I could start with a fresh system.

Taipei, Taiwan, 27 June 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA P700 Pico-ITX board that couples more features within a streamlined, ultra compact footprint designed for low profile systems, with extended I/O port options through two companion boards.

Now featuring native S-ATA II support, Gigabit LAN, and support for GPIO, SM bus and LPC devices, the 10cm x 7.2cm VIA EPIA P700 is based on the VIA VX700 unified digital media IGP chipset and is powered by a 1GHz VIA C7 or fanless 500MHz VIA Eden ULV processor. An integrated power adapter coupled with the 5-volt S-SATA power cable negates the need for a separate power daughterboard, saving considerable space for ultra compact systems.

Crucial being one of the most realized and a respected name in memory reproduction has graciously offered a set of Ballistix PC3-16000 for reviewing. With 9-9-9-28 timings being rather high latency can we adjusted with a little tweaking and voltage. But hitting 2000MHz isn’t something many of us have seen from other own system. But Crucial today will give us that opportunity.

CLICK HERE FOR Crucial Ballistix PC3-16000 2000MHz SHOPPING & PRICING

"For the overclocking tests I used the Catalyst Control Center to bump up the core and memory speeds a few megahertz at a time until it became unstable and unable to complete a benchmark. Unlike the HD 4850, I could not get as much of an increase out of the RV770 core on the HD 4870. I was only able to get a 30MHz increase, topping out at 780MHz. However, for the memory I was able to get a lot more actually, a 175MHz increase (350MHz effective), bringing it to 1075MHz (2150MHz effective) which is a very good overclock for video card memory. Since this is GDDR5, I did not know what to expect but I am pleased with that bump in computing power. So how will this overclock handle, and will it make a difference since the GPU could only be raised a little? To find out, I will be running the overclocking tests at the speeds of 780/1075MHz. I also noticed that when overclocked even this little bit, the load temperatures peaked and stayed around 86 degrees Celsius."

Antec has three premium lines of consumer computer cases in it's roster: Performance One, Sonata and Gamer. We've already looked at cases from the Performance One and Sonata lines and those cases left with many awards and high ratings. So now all that's left is a look at Antec's Gamer line of cases. It's pretty obvious, but the Gamer line of cases is targeted towards gamers. Antec's claim for it's Gamer cases is that they have "unprecedented cooling, convenience, and style." That's what we'll check out today with the entry level Gamer case from Antec, the Three Hundred.

CLICK HERE FOR Antec Three Hundred Gamer Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"WWAN is becoming more and more popular for business travelers and remote locations for internet connectivity. With a simple USB or PCMCIA card stuck in your laptop, you can pretty much connect from anywhere you can get cell service, and the bandwidth available on these wireless plans is about what you'd expect from an entry level DSL connection. Which means sooner or later you might think to yourself, "boy it sure would be nice to be able to share this big pipe with more users than just my laptop"."

CLICK HERE FOR CradlePoint Technology PHS300 WWAN Router SHOPPING & PRICING

Now that the personal computer has finally made its way into our living and family rooms it became necessary for a bit of case beautification. One of the companies that has just that with great success is our friends at Antec. Today we are reviewing one of their HTPC cases the Antec Fusion Black 430, this case has a great deal to offer and deserves a closer look for anyone pondering the thought of building a HTPC.

"If you look up Nuvi in the dictionary, you won't find anything, and on a traditional US keyboard, it's hard to even type N ü (hold down alt, then on your numeric keypad type 0252) v i. Go ahead, give it a shot. But if you go into any major retail store that offers GPS units you will definitely find Garmin Nüvi GPS units all over the place competing as one of the best in car, on the trail or in the airplane navigation system solutions money can buy. Today we are looking at their 680 model which features Bluetooth connectivity and MSN Direct which provides real-time traffic data, movie time and more. The Garmin Nüvi 680 has a street price around $399 USD. Check out our full review after the jump."

"Microsoft came out with latest service pack for XP, four years after SP2 was released. XP itself is very stabile system with SP2 installed, so SP3 is considered as not so innovative like it was SP2. The essence of this service pack is to bring all patches for XP that are released until
now. Beside patches attended for safety of your OS, SP3 also contains few new additions that should provide better network collaboration, easier administration etc. "

CLICK HERE FOR Windows XP SHOPPING & PRICING

"AMD/ATI has released two new high-end graphics chips recently, Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850, known by the codenames RV770 XT and RV770 PRO, respectively. As you can guess by the numbers, HD 4850 provides a lower performance compared to HD 4870. In this review we will benchmark HD 4850 from Sapphire and compare it to its main competitors from nVidia. Is this video card a good buy? Check it out."

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire HD 4850 Video Card SHOPPING & PRICING

"The In-Win B2 is without a doubt a gamer orientated ATX chassis. Designed with aspects and features to resemble a B2 stealth bomber plane this military looking case is apt to turn some heads. It has a fully functional automatic hatch at the front and comes with four case fans to keep your hardware inside running cool."

CLICK HERE FOR In-Win B2 Stealth Bomber ATX Case SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR TWEAKNEWS.NET'S REVIEW ON THIS PRODUCT

"Today we are going to review a graphics card that has the same dimensions and weight as the GTX 280, but it has a narrower bus and fewer unified processors. Besides, it's noticeably cheaper. Meet the GeForce GTX 260."

"Water Cooling has always been a quite complex part of the computer industry and in the past, only extreme hardware enthusiasts have undertaken it. It’s a long process of buying water-cooling parts singly and them modifying your case to fit the parts; this can prove daunting for most. Fortunately though, Zalman have come up with a case designed specifically for water cooling which also includes a basic WC setup. So without further a do, I introduce to you the Zalman Z-Machine LQ1000."

The NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi is an amazing screen that not only fits the bill for professionals, but will also appeal to those of us that want stunning image quality, a whole host of features and acres of desktop real estate. Of course, the price will undoubtedly put a lot of people off this screen, but I tell you, if I had £1,500 burning a hole in my pocket I know where I'd be spending it. Yes, it's expensive, but then so is a Ferrari F430 Scuderia – it's all about getting what you pay for.

And what you get for your money here is one of the best LCDs I've ever had on my desk. Going back to my Samsung SyncMaster 215TW—even though it's incredible—will be very hard indeed. There's nothing that will replace the sheer size of this display combined with the simply stunning image quality. I'm going to be a very sad man indeed.

CLICK HERE FOR NEC's MultiSync LCD3090WQXi 30-inch Widescreen Monitor SHOPPING & PRICING

"So, where do you turn to when you run out of ports on the motherboard? - To a discrete solution of course! There are many companies out there providing a huge array of cards.

Areca is a new company to TweakTown; we haven’t been graced with any products from them until now, and as always we are more than happy to oblige them with some testing of their products. Today they have sent one of their biggest cards for SATA-II expansion. In our labs we have been sent the ARC-1231ML 12 channel SATA-II Controller. Let’s get stuck right into it."

"The Sapphire HD4850 utilizes ATI's design of their newest core using a 55nm manufacturing technology, the RV770 using 512MB of GDDR3 memory. I had expected to see some great numbers from the new card, however what I saw was way beyond what I expected. The stock benchmarking scores of the HD4850 beat the 9800 a few times and got beat a few times by it, however once the Sapphire HD4850's core was overclocked to 670MHz and the memory was pushed all the way up to 1100MHz, it was able to compete with the competition's newest card, the GTX 280. When the card was overclocked, unlike the PowerColor HD4850, the temperatures of the GPU were sitting around 82-86 degrees Celsius under load, while these temperatures are not very good and are quite high, I felt that they were safe enough for me to be able to run some benchmarks."

Proper competition from AMD in the mid-range scheme of things might have taken a while to happen, but it does happen with the HD 4000 series. We are taking a look at the smaller of the two new models, which offers exceptional performance for the price of $200.

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS EAH4850 512MB SHOPPING & PRICING

"I've had this KPC for a month now. Maybe longer, actually. This review has seen setback after setback: I've had entirely too grand a time playing with this little Linux wonder to really bother with writing. Sure, it's got drawbacks--big ones, to be honest--but it also has this charm not readily engendered by other boxes, no matter how small, elegant, or polished they may be. And, pretty soon, I'm going to have to take it apart and stick its silicon organs into another machine so I can report on my KPC's performance. I want to delay that. I want to keep playing."

CLICK HERE FOR Shuttle KPC K45 Barebones System SHOPPING & PRICING

"When Futuremark Vantage was designed the AGEIA PhysX SDK was used and a discrete Physical Processing Unit was needed to offload the benchmark DLLs from the CPU to the PPU. We showed this in our article about 3DMark Vantage the day the benchmark came out. We dedicated an entire page to offloading PhysX to a PPU and no one cried that it was cheating moving the DLLs from the CPU to the PPU. Now that NVIDIA had moved the workloads from the CPU to the GPU they are accused of cheating!"

"FPS, or first person shooter, is the most popular genre of PC games. No console controller has surpassed the mouse as the weapon of choice among FPS enthusiasts. Zalman, a company known as a maker of coolers, is trying to woo FPS players with a gun shaped mouse, the FG1000. Since we are card carrying fans of the genre, we tested the new toy. Let the (digital) bullets fly."

CLICK HERE FOR Zalman FPSGun FG1000 Mouse SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR TWEAKNEWS.NET'S REVIEW ON THIS PRODUCT

“During the benchmark install, a runtime library is updated to allow the test to run on the GPU and then during the test, it addresses the benchmark DLLs to the GPU instead of the PPU or CPU. Nothing within the benchmark is changed at all. No software libraries or even a line of code changes in the benchmark whatsoever. The only thing that changes is that installer, nothing else. It has been said that the tests results look different on the screen when running with PhysX enabled on the GPU. And of course this is true, just as the screen results look different when you test on a dual-core CPU versus a quad-core. This isn't a graphics test; it's a physics test. 3DMark Vantage specifically scales more complexity into a scene to take advantage of additional physics compute resources, which of course is why it looks so different/better on a test run with PhysX processing on our GPUs. This is by design in the benchmark and if the folks accusing us took the time to run it, they would know that.”

Artiom takes a look at he Pinnacle Systems HD Pro 801e USB stick. For you video editors out there this may be just what you need. Take a look at our review to find out if the HD stick 801e is what you need for your video editing.

CLICK HERE FOR PCTV HD Pro Stick (801e) SHOPPING & PRICING

"Frankly speaking, considering test results of Phenom X4 9850, we were not keen to test a lower-clocked Phenom X3 8750 with fewer cores. However, our initial negative thinking served the good turn, because we were not disappointed. On the contrary, we decided that some people may seriously like this curiosity."

CLICK HERE FOR AMD Phenom X3 8750 SHOPPING & PRICING

Today we will be running the two new products through a selection of the latest games at resolutions up to 2560x1600 as well as delving into some Blu-Ray playback testing and overclocking in order to establish how well they perform. We will also be looking at how they compare to the more expensive cards currently available to see if the extra cash outlay really does benefit the consumer, or if these new cards provide excellent performance at a much more attractive price.

"The ATI Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon 4850 are basically the same thing as both have the same number of transistors (965 million) and use the 55nm manufacturing process at TSMC. Both offer DX10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support and use ATI's CrossFireX multi-GPU technology. The only big difference here is the clock speed and the memory type! The new higher clock frequencies mean the math processing rate is now 1.2 TeraFLOPS over the 1.0 TeraFLOPS found on the Radeon HD 4850..."

This review is going to focus on a keyboard loaded with features specifically designed for 3D gamers; the G15 Revision 2. The overall style is sporty, a "GamePanel" LCD provides convenient access to system information, a handful of G-keys allow you to program your own macros, and backlit keys let you take command with any lighting condition.

CLICK HERE FOR Logitech G15 Revision 2 Gaming Keyboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"Nintendo Wii wasn't equipped with powerful hardware, Blu-ray disc reader, great visual effects or performances never seen before, but never the less it succeeded to impose itself as best buy console despite Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation3. Instead of all these expected characteristics Nintendo came out with revolutionary system of playing and lower price than competition had. "

CLICK HERE FOR Nintendo Wii Fit SHOPPING & PRICING

"While going over this review I tried to think of something that I disliked about the Crosshair II and for once, I cannot find anything that is a negative about it. The price is on the high side, but considering the performance the Crosshair II showed and the wealth of utilities, extras, and addons, it is justifiable since you do get what you pay for. Are there cheaper boards out there that offer great features at a lower price? Yea, but can you find one that has everything in one like this, including a killer sound card? Probably not. If you are into extreme overclocking or high end gaming, look into picking up this board and take over your competition. You will not be disappointed."

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS Crosshair II Formula SHOPPING & PRICING

What better way is there to find out which CPU coolers excel than to throw them at our ultra-hot Intel QX6850? We took 22 different models and did just that. Some surprised us, some didn't.

It has been a hard two years for ATI and we know that many people out there have been counting down the days until the boys in red returned to competitiveness. Well ladies and gents, the wait is over because the HD4870 has shown us that ATI has come out with all guns blazing. While the HD3870 and HD3850 were popular cards which have been able to compete on a number of fronts with their Nvidia counterparts, we are quickly coming to realize that they were nothing more than technology demonstrators for the 55nm manufacturing process. This process has now blossomed into full maturity with the R770-series cards which seem set to take the graphics card world by storm.

I normally don't review non-computer accessories circuitREMIX, but I made an exception for Belkin's TuneCast Auto with Clearscan for iPhone/iPod. For one, iPods are hugely popular around the world and the new iPhone 3G is going to make a huge splash on July 11. As well, I personally own some iPods and I intend on buying an iPhone 3G when they're released. In my personal interest in the matter, I've had some trouble finding a good FM transmitter for my iPods. My car is from 2003, and that was before most cars came standard with auxilary input jacks for audio devices. It also doesn't have a cassette deck, and since I'm still using the OEM stereo, there isn't an easy way to install a direct cable input. Using an FM transmitter is my only easy option to get audio from my iPods to my stereo, and out the speakers.

CLICK HERE FOR Belkin TuneCast Auto SHOPPING & PRICING

"Usually the words "gaming" and "budget-oriented" combine in the PC world about as well as oil and water, but that's not the case with Gateway's remarkable P-6860FX notebook, which is a truly great gaming notebook with an amazingly low price tag. This GeForce 8800-powered behemoth costs just $1,349 but is far from a stripped-down, bare-bones notebook. It's loaded with features and expansion ports and has lots of storage as well as 4GB of RAM. The only real compromise is its 1.83GHz processor, but that's not too egregious of a violation given its otherwise compelling specs."

This new motherboard from Sapphire has all the features that any person could ask for when they are building a new or replacement HTPC. We also found the integrated graphics chip worked very well with games such as "Company of Heroes" and "Doom 3." So take a moment to see what we recommend as "The Perfect HTPC Motherboard", hands down.

" A few days ago I took a look at the Kingwin RVT-9225 CPU Cooler, today for review I've got the RVT-12025 CPU Cooler, it's essentially exactly the same design but only larger and with a 120mm fan instead of a 92mm fan. Well I'm shocked with the performance of this CPU Cooler, it's all that and more, this thing goes up against the competition and truly stands its ground, it might not be the best but it's real close to them in its cooling performance."

CLICK HERE FOR Kingwin Revolution RVT-12025 CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

"Over a year ago I looked at the Ninja Laptop Cooler from Vizo which scored decent marks. Today I received the miniNinja from Vizo. This is pretty much a smaller version of the Ninja, hence the name. It's still an aluminum laptop cooler with two quiet fans that help move the heat away from your laptop. It also angles the laptop a bit to help ease the strain on your wrist. So how does it hold up to it's older brother?"

We have yet again received another mainboard from Asrock that is based on this Intel and improved chipset. The P45R2000-WiFi has the look and feel of the X48TwinTurbo we reviewed just a week or so ago. Now the P45R2000 has all options stated above and plus some but what will be an added feature of this board is its price. It should be price well under the $240 asking price of the ASUS P5Q at about $150-$160. Price is one thing but is it worth it in the end? Read on as well put this board on the bench.

The ASUS P5E3 Premium/WiFi-AP @n is an Intel X48 chipset-based motherboard that combines performance with great energy efficiency. It supports DDR3 2000MHz dual-channel memory architecture and Dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 lanes for ATI CrossFire graphics performance card users. If you are looking for a motherboard that features cutting edge features and uses the tried and true Intel X48 Express chipset then look no further.

CLICK HERE FOR Asus P5E3 Premium WiFi-AP @n Edition Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"I’m looking forward to seeing how the GTX 260 fairs in this extremely competitive graphics card market, and hopefully its cheaper price tag can win us over. The graphics card market has never been this hot before, and while AMD are fighting the good fight to take the market share crown back, NVIDIA is battling them off with sticks at the moment.

While looking at how the GTX 260 XXX goes against the GTX 280 XXX, we will see how it also compares against the 9800 GTX and 9800 GX2 to see if the price drop affects performance much."

Keyboards of the past were designed for the same thing typewriter keyboards were, typing. Today's computers, being more powerful and diversified, encompass entertainment and gaming and the need for good gaming and multimedia keyboards has grown with the evolution of more powerful machines.

On our test bench today we have two 4GB kits from Crucial and Corsair. The Crucial sticks aim to give us additional memory at a very attractive price whereas the Corsair modules aim for class leading performance. We have tested each set throughout a number of tests in order to establish how much of a benefit each gives over a standard two gigabyte configuration.

CLICK HERE FOR Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 SHOPPING & PRICING

There are not many manufacturers offering such massive kits, but Winchip has made some waves before with unique offerings. Their 667 MHz 4x 4 GB kit runs at CL5. Such a large capacity kit is intended for very specific scenarios. We try to showcase some of these.

“Back in May 2008 I was lucky enough to be invited by ECS Elitegroup to take a guided factory tour of a couple of their PCB manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen, China. The trip was wrapped around the same time as Computex in Taipei, Taiwan so I hit Computex, then flew over to China to hit up the tour before flying back to the USA. We have been dealing with ECS here at Virtual-Hideout for years now and it was an honor to be invited on such an exclusive, inside look at their world class facilities. Get your passport up to date as come along with me as we tour ECS together...”

Razer has a nice line up of great gaming gear designed specifically to enhance the gaming experience of hardcore gamers out there. The Razer Destructor mouse pad is no different.

CLICK HERE FOR Razer Destructor Professional Gaming Mat SHOPPING & PRICING

"Well, I was hoping for a bit more performance out of the NF-B9, but at just 1600 RPM, it's asking quite a lot for it to perform better than fans turning at 2000 RPM and higher, and yet it matched or exceeded the performance of the Thermaltake TT-9025A (2000 RPM) fan. So, in this respect, the design of the NF-B9 fan blades can be seen as having a performance advantage over standard fan blades."

CLICK HERE FOR Noctua NF-B9 SHOPPING & PRICING

"If the GTX 280 AMP! Edition from ZOTAC wasn’t enough MHz for you, we might have the card for you today. XFX is back once again, carrying with it some pretty mean speeds on the new GTX 280 XXX Edition.

While the XFX GTX 280 does come in 30MHz lower on the core compared to the ZOTAC offering, it does carry with it a significantly higher 200MHz DDR memory clock. Let’s find out if that makes up for the reduced core speed."

"TekNmotion specializes in CD/DVD carrying cases, individual disc cases as well as sleeving for individual discs. The Pulsar SX Gaming Headset, released just two months ago, represents their introduction into the gaming market. According to their website, this headset has been in development for over two yeas and includes pretty much everything that you need in a gaming headset... except the high price. Can this newcomer really produce a quality gaming headset at a fraction of the price?"

"Fortunately for everyone except maybe Noctua’s competitors, the NF-P12 is the type of component that can at least prolong its maker’s success as it offers a solid balance between performance and overall noise output and has great versatility. As the tests concluded, the NF-P12 provides top performance at its maximum working speed of 1300 RPM (rotations per minute) and while some might want more air being pushed through the fan’s blades, those aiming to have a PC that is both quiet and cool will surely be pleased with Noctua’s compromise."

The front of the box advertises the simplicity of the product: Press - Burn - Go. Pretty simple, no?

After AMD's successful launch of the HD 4850 Series, NVIDIA decided to drop the price point of the GeForce 9800 GTX to only $199. At this price the card becomes a very affordable product that offers all the performance you need to play the latest games. An additional plus is the support for PhysX via NVIDIA's CUDA implementation.

X-Spice is a newcomer to the shores of North America, and they have shared their Kira series 630 watt power supply with me to see how it does.

Today we have a look at Intel's new top-of-the-line Core 2 Mobile chip, the Core 2 Extreme Mobile X9000. At 2.8GHz with a full 6MB of L2 cache and a TDP of 35 Watts, this chip is Intel's fastest notebook CPU for the performance enthusiast, gaming, and multimedia markets, aka the Desktop Replacement (DTR) crowd.

"These solutions offer similar characteristics, possessing support for all necessary technologies to become top products. NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI can boast of SLI support and more functional Southbridge; Intel X48 - Turbo Memory support, lower heat release, and lower prices."

This card will essentially be a XFX Black Edition 9800GTX as the clock speeds will be 738MHz for the core and higher clock speed for the Shader clock. It will be an interesting battle for sure, but ATI has fired the first salvo towards high-performance sub-$200 video cards of 2008. The high-end enthusiast market wanting an ATI card that competes well against NVIDIA’s best will have to wait a month or so until the HD4870 arrives and its dual-chip brother the 4870X2. They will have higher clock speeds, GDDR5 memory and be much more competitive against the GTX260 and GTX280 (here’s a hint; two 4870s working together on a single PCB will likely outperform GTX280 for the same price point) If this forces NVIDIA to lower their prices it will be a much better market, after all, who wants to spend $650+ on a new video card if you can help it. The 4850 does what it is designed to do with high end performance outclassing the HD3870 across the board for a $200 price point using less power and with excellent features the HD4850 is interesting competition to NVIDIA’s mid-range card the 9800GTX+ and 9800GTX standard at $199.

" ... At least both manufacturers can now say they've managed to release their P45 based motherboards, designed and aimed at the mainstream maket. How good are they? ... I'll let you decide."

"One of the more innovative decisions taken by Cooler Master for their Silent Pro range of parts is the use of flat cables for all of the various modular power connectors provided with the board - This should hopefully make it far easier to route cables around your chassis, and more importantly to do so in a neat and tidy fashion and without overly restricting airflow to boot.

We've already mentioned the two PCI Express power connectors provided with this power supply, both of which can be used as either six or eight-pin cables. That aside, the PSU also features a total of five Molex connectors, a single floppy power connector, and nine Serial ATA power connectors."

Today we look at the newest CPU cooler from ASUS, the Lion Square. Named for the Sword Lion legend and designed with quad core CPU's in mind this seems to be a slick heat sink. The bold and unique design features eight heat pipes that originate from the copper base all the way to the top where they are covered by neat looking nuts. The very top of the cooler has a cover that mimics the shape of a shield. It looks great, but how will it perform?

"Over the years, there have been other electronic book readers, but none has been highly successful. The Kindle is the first device of this type developed by Amazon.com, a company whose primary focus is on books. Can a company that understands how to sell books deliver a technologically superior and universally-accepted e-book reader? We took a good look at the Kindle to find out."

"Riding on the shoulders of its predecessor, the original Aliph Jawbone; comes the second generation Jawbone 2. By adding Noise Assassin technology, a 40% smaller size, and an even cooler, more stylish look to it, the Aliph Jawbone 2 might be the paramount of headsets."

Teens, tweens and our kids cant imagine not being able to go online and immediately have the world at their fingertips.

The concept of physical video/audio/photo production, paper/filing cabinets are difficult for them to fathom. Create the content using ultra-fast, ultra-cheap hardware/software. Put the content up for the world to enjoy and share. Make copies and copies of copies.

Exciting plot lines and ethically dubious marketing aside, we at Bjorn3D can't remember a time when the mid-range market was this exciting! Oh wait, it was 8-months ago when the 8800 GT showed up though without any real competition. Regardless of which side of the fence you are on it, is a great day for PC gaming everywhere. Not to mention the expansion of GPU computing into other areas like video transcoding and super-computing. Without further ado I present to you the newest card in NVIDIA's arsenal in the on-going battle for the mid-range market, the 9800 GTX+. The plus means better!

"I wanted to see how far I could push the memory within the modules' limits and still get good scores. The sweet spot for the overclock I reached was 1066MHz, and all I had to do was bump the voltage to the 2.1v maximum specification and loosen the timings to 5-5-5-12. This gave me a 266MHz overclock, which is a 33% bump. Now that is a great speed increase for a set of memory modules. Everything ran stable and I had no problems with the benchmarks or Memtest86+ with these setting, so that is where my overclocked numbers will be run."

"OCZ have been known for high performance memory for quite some time. Somewhat recently they have expanded into other areas of computer hardware, such as power supplies and cooling.2 Today we will be taking a look at OCZ's new CPU cooler, the OCZ Vendetta 2."

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Vendetta 2 Heatpipe Touch CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

High Performance Group (Hiper) is best known for their self-designed power supply units, yet they have recently begun to compete in the computer chassis market. Their first foray into the arena was with the rock-solid Hiper Anubis Mid Tower ATX Case HTC-1K614, which could withstand brutal punishment while looking very stylish. Mere months later, Hiper has returned with the Osiris Mid-Tower 6063-T5 Alloy Computer Case HTC-1K514-A1. Named after the ancient Egyptian god of the overworld, this case comes equipped with many of the award-winning features found in the Anubis and adds a total of 20 new refinements.

Mobile computing doesn't have to be boring - the U6E from ASUS proves that. Within its 12-inch frame is some of the best styling around and very competent hardware, along with a full-sized keyboard, fingerprint reader and four USB ports. Does this small notebook win big time?

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS U6E 12.1" Notebook SHOPPING & PRICING

"Most people wouldn't expect a quad-core rig with Crossfire graphics cards to run well on 500W, but the Silencer is a testament to the fact that it can with a high quality power supply. Theoretically, at full load, this rig pulls about 400W, but very few power supplies rated below 600W could handle it. Indeed, on the topic of performance, the Silencer did a fine job, though I would have liked to see a slightly more accurate reading on the 5V line."

"In this review we take a look at an affordable NVIDIA 750i based motherboard from MSI. It allows you to build an SLI gaming system powered by an Intel S775 CPU. Is this product good enough for the enthusiast? We compare its performance to an X38 based S775 board and also let you explore the BIOS of the MSI with our virtual tour."

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"Today for review I've got another Digital Photo Keychain from our friends at Wholesale Keychain, it's called the TAO and it features a 1.4 inch Lcd screen, large memory capacity, and even an included AC adapter to make charging the battery easier. "

“CoolerMaster has a wide assortment of heatpipe-based coolers, and one of their newest releases is the Hyper 212. The construction has multiple heatpipes in a tower design, but not just any tower design. The Hyper 212 sports a dual tower design, with four heatpipes each and increased surface area. The heatpipes use Fluid Mechanics to draw heat away from the copper base and move it to the fins. The Hyper 212 is designed to handle the newer releases of CPU's more efficiently and effectively. “

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"The guys down at IBuyPower Australia can’t get rid of me these days. I’m surprised they haven’t started asking me to pay rent. The other day the ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution board arrived, and this thing just absolutely won me over as far as looks and features went.

However, the feature that we really care about today is the fact it has four PCI Express x16 slots. While ASUS use a x16/x16/x4/x4 configuration, it’s really one of the best on the market. So, with four HD 4850s in hand and hopefully a driver that was going to work, it was time to take four of these single slot bad boys to town."

" This mouse is another great addition to the SteelSeries product list. Gamers will now be able to get a variety of products to choose from to fulfill their gaming needs."

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CLICK HERE FOR TWEAKNEWS.NET'S REVIEW ON THIS PRODUCT

"The highest settings we could get stable with the GeForce 9800 GTX+ were 855MHz on the core and 2200MHz on the shaders. That is 55MHz higher on the core and 175MHz higher on the shaders than what we could reach on the old 65nm G92 core. For those that like percentages the overclock is roughly 6% higher on the core and 8% more on the shaders, which is significant, but nothing over the top. Usually with die shrinks overclocking performance stays close to the same, even more so when no major architecture changes are made. It should be noted that the memory overclocked better on the GeForce 9800 GTX+ and it seems NVIDIA has moved over to Hynix branded GDDR3 memory ICs. The GDDR3 memory IC's on the new GeForce 9800 GTX+ card were Hynix H5RS5223CFR-N2C, which are rated 1200 MHz (GDDR3-2400) 0.8NS with 1.5V. These are the same memory IC's that were found on the GeForce GTX 280 cards we reviewed last week..."

The Xigmatek Achilles S1284 heatsink has many improvements over the famous HDT-S1283 cooler. There are now four U-shaped heatpipes, and they are nickel-plated. The fan design is new and unique as well, with its white LEDs that light up the fan's smoke frame and orange blades.

With Digital Convergence finally becoming a reality, the first thing were all starting to notice is that we NEED more storage. USB Hard Drive Enclosures have been helping fill this void as its an easy way to quickly expand the available storage on your computer. By using an extra drive, or purchasing a new one, you can quickly put this into the iNEO Enclosure to add more space to your PC.

CLICK HERE FOR INEO I-NA305J External JBOD Enclosure SHOPPING & PRICING