Week of June 29, 2008

"Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a slick new user interface for Ubuntu on sub-notebooks like the Asus eeePC and the OLPC XO. Installing Netbook Remix on the XO is not for the faint of heart, but if you're looking to get some extra geek points then strap in: it's going to be a long ride."

"The Asus EN9600GT Top/HTDI/512M is a Geforce 9600GT based PCI Express graphics card. It ships pre-overclocked from the factory for roughly a 10% gaming edge, and packs in a typical 512MB of GDDR3 memory. It's nVidia Geforce 9600GT GPU runs at 720MHz (up from the stock of 700MHz), while memory and shader clock speeds sit at 2000MHz and 1800MHz respectively. Asus retail the EN9600GT Top/HTDI/512M videocard for roughly $50 less than a Radeon HD4850 card will set you back, and comes with a pretty basic accessory bundle."

CLICK HERE FOR Asus EN9600GT SHOPPING & PRICING

"AMD has a range of chipsets available for its Phenom processor, these including the 780G chipset; the first of the 7 series to come out from AMD, and by far one of the most powerful integrated chipsets available today.

ASRock has been one of the loyal followers for AMD and has produced some rather impressive boards for its low budget status. The company has come up with a new 780G chipset oriented board designed for the HTPC and Digital PC environment."

CLICK HERE FOR ASRock A780FullDisplayPort Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

" ... The performance of the Gigabyte GV-R487-512H-B Radeon HD4870 is extrememly good ... It may not be as fast as the Geforce GTX 280 ... but the performance isn't that far off. "

"The 4870 is an excellent card, but for now, all the models are functionally identical, and there are yet to be factory-overclocked cards, let alone custom-cooled models. Variation ranges from changing the sticker to adding spiffy adapters. If you buy Diamond, you're not buying a different card, you're buying better service, only they're not charging extra."

"A 6 gram USB drive not much larger than a fingernail, with room for up to 8Gb of data. Super*Talent has designed a stylish device which claims up to 30Mb/s read speed. Let see what it is made of."

CLICK HERE FOR Super Talent Pico-C 8Gb Micro USB Stick SHOPPING & PRICING

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

It's rare occasion to have on test, on the same month, new generation products from two big rivals (nVIDIA and ATI). This is really good news because ATI had some serious delays with R600 and that is one of reasons why it was so indifferently received on market. ATI realized that now must roll up its sleeves to catch up nVIDIA, because at that point seemed that nVIDIA unreachably moved away.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire HD 4850 SHOPPING & PRICING

At times it feels like you just can't keep up with the rest of the world. There is always something that creeps up on you when you least expect it, and many times you are not ready for the changes that come along with it. Videocards are no exception to this. I am the type of person that would love to be on the bleeding edge of technology at all times, but my wallet just can't always keep up, so sacrifices are made. I recently got the chance to take a look at the NVIDIA 8800 GS and 8800 GS XXX from XFX. You may be thinking that these cards are old, as we are now in the 9000 and 200 series from NVIDIA, but for those of us who have to take a slower approach to upgrading our PCs, these cards are a great value.

CLICK HERE FOR XFX GeForce 8800GS SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR XFX 8800 GS XXX SHOPPING & PRICING

ATI has a definite winner here as the card comes close to the GTX280 in one situation and beats the previous generation HD3870 throughout the tests. Apparently the HD4870 comes close to the performance of a GTX260 in almost every case, but for $100 less making it a real winner. Competition has been lacking in the graphics market since the launch of the 8800GTX two years ago, but ATI is back with a vengeance offering lower power draw, great performance and features for a lower price point than the competition at the same performance segment. The big gun of the ATI lineup, the HD4870X2 is due in August and should outperform any GTX280 across the board for lower prices.

Crucial once again knocks socks off and does it in style. The Ballistix line of memory has always been known to impress and rightfully they should. But what this kit of memory has done on the 790i test motherboard is just above and beyond what our expectations were...and our expectations were certainly a little bit lofty coming in. Needless to say, we weren't expecting to be able to benchmark at 1100MHz+ and certainly not at the little amount of voltage that was required to do so. Simply put, this memory out ran the motherboard and it wasn't even a close race.

CLICK HERE FOR Crucial Ballistix 1GBx2 PC3-16000 SHOPPING & PRICING

"While we have already examined a few motherboards on AMD 780G, some performance matters were not covered. For example, operation in the Hybrid CrossFire mode and decoding of HD video. To be more exact, they were waiting in the wings for a traditional "personal" review of the chipset. Now we finally publish it."

Based off of the RV670 chipset is the Sapphire Ultimate 3870 video card. This card many not be overclocked like the Toxic we reviewed a few weeks back. This means it won’t perform at the same level of the Toxic did, but the major thing the Ultimate has over the Toxic is silence. Combined with 512MB of GDDR4 and Shader 4.1, silence isn’t the only feature the card has that it can boast about. Just how well does it match up against the Toxic mode?

"Ever felt the need to run three operating systems separately on your MacBook Pro? I scoured the internet in search of a good, straightforward guide to accomplishing the task. Unhappy with what I found, I decided to write up a straightforward guide for anyone else daring enough to do the same."

CLICK HERE FOR MacBook Pro SHOPPING & PRICING

The In Win B2 is an excellent choice for anyone who wants a rather unique computer case. There aren't any other cases I know of that are modeled after a stealth bomber, or that have a front door that opens like this. Tool-less design features can be found everywhere, and except for mounting the motherboard, there is no need to get a screwdriver out.

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

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

As we all know Graphics are an integral part of a gaming system, and to get the ultimate gaming experience you must own a GPU to match the recent influx of graphic demanding games. Just before Christmas 2007, Sapphire released a variety of GPU's that had everyone talking. Sapphire's new 3800 range of cards boasted high performance at a very affordable price for the average gamer. Setting in stone the performance war between GPU manufacturers!!

NVIDIA has recently launched the GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 video cards. Both the GTX 280 and GTX 260 products position themselves at the most elite segment of the GeForce product line, so just imagine how much more powerful the GeForce GTX 280 could become after ZOTAC give it their special AMP! Edition treatment. The recent Radeon HD 4870 launch may have shown how close ATI/AMD can get to NVIDIA's bar of performance, but the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 280 AMP! Edition graphics card has just raised that bar much higher. Benchmark Reviews tests the ZOTAC ZT-X28E3LA-FCP against the GeForce 9800 GX2 and 9800 GTX, as well as the new Radeon HD 4850 in CrossFireX configuration.

"Overall, I’m extremely impressed with this Aten CS1782 KVM switch. The Wife was very annoyed by the WoW keyboard problem, but as mentioned, it went away the instant I plugged in a USB keyboard, which made her happy and negated that annoyance. I would figure most gamers that are willing to drop the cash for something like this, would already be beyond the older PS/2 keyboards and into something like the Logitech G15. Speaking of price, Aten’s MSRP is $279.95, but I’ve used my Google and shopping skills and have found it around the net from $172.87 to $237.83. This is definitely a bit pricey for a KVM, especially considering most KVM’s that users would buy (other than enterprise/corporate clients) cost around $50.00 to $100.00. My own KVM’s have never nailed me for more than $55, but then again, my KVM’s won’t do DVI natively (and LCD’s look ghosted or strange through a KVM with a DVI adapter), most don’t have USB functions, and not a single KVM I’ve ever seen before has had the ability to 7.1 audio."

"Today we’ve got two gaming oriented headsets in hand from SteelSeries and Razer. Both headsets are equipped with built-in microphone booms and offer in-line switches to control volume and mute functions for the microphone.

Comparing things of an auditory nature can always be tricky, so first I will give you the specs of both and later on I will give you the impressions of each through a series of tests based on my finely tuned aural senses..."

ASUS finally antes up to the bang-for-the-buck table with a value-priced product in their Xonar family of performance audio cards. It’s got a solid feature set, and debuts with ASUS’ new DS3D GX 2.0 environmental DSP, but does it break new ground in the price/performance department?

"Today I've got the last of three CPU coolers that Kingwin has sent me over for review, the RVT-12025D, and this thing is huge.The RVT-12025D offers decent cooling performance but not what you might expect from such a large cooler, you won't be breaking any records with this cooler. It's built to be silent and keep your CPU cool, and that it does well. Installation though can be tricky, and downright difficult actually... "

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

For the high end audio enthusiast the holy grail has always been vacuum tubes. Nothing else is capable of producing as clear or powerful sound. We take a look at the Symphonic Designs Vacuum Tube Amplifier which mates old with new in its design which integrates an iPod dock and even bluetooth. Do we like this "lifestyles of the rich and famous" priced amplifier? Or do we think it needs some more refinement. Read our review to find out.

The new TV Wonder 600 PCIe TV tuner card is the PCI-Express x1 entry level model of the new series. This is also the first time that the TV Wonder series is available in Europe with the PAL standard. It can be used for analog or DVB-T signals and manages MPEG encoding by software. The card is built on a fancy purple PCB, comes with an extremely stylish IR receiver along with a remote and PowerCinema 5.

While there are quite a few manufacturers building GeForce 8800M equipped notebooks, almost all of them are high-end products that demand top dollar for the pleasure. Gateway's "P-Series FX" line-up of 17" gaming notebooks seems no different at first glance. However, careful inspection of their product specifications reveals that the most junior P-Series FX model weighs in at just $1,349.99, a decidedly mid-range price point for this type of machine. Yet it's still powered by a GeForce 8800M, just like the rest of the otherwise high-end FX notebook line-up.

"Today we look at Motorola's newest offering to augment their huge Bluetooth stable, the H680. Motorola designed this headset to look stylish and feel elegant. It has a very small footprint and weighs in at a very light 12 grams. Even with its small size, Motorola says the battery can last for 8 hours of talk time with a stand by time of up to 8 days. The slick-looking H680 comes with a charging case that plugs into a "micro" USB to charge up the headset. In an unusual move, Motorola even included a dedicated "on/off" button on the back of the headset..."

CLICK HERE FOR Motorola H680 Bluetooth Headset SHOPPING & PRICING

G.Skill has recognized this need for high performance 2x2GB kits of DDR3 memory and has sprinkled the pot with a PC3-12800 4GB kit with tight timings of 7-7-7. DDR3 memory frequencies have really started taking off but at much looser timings. The DDR3-1600 and 7-7-7 timing combination really is a steadfast combo that has been common for 2x1GB kits but is a little harder to find in 2GB density sticks. To top off these rather impressive specifications, G.Skill has added in a set of their new PI heat spreaders.

"Asus has launched a bigger (and better) version of its popular Eee PC. Dubbed the Eee PC 901, this new version includes a lot of welcome improvements from the previous model, including more screen real estate, storage, and processing power. Asus also now offers the 901 with either Linux or Windows XP, and both versions cost the same too. We received a Linux version for testing and like it much better than the original unit, though the keyboard is still a bit too cramped for our tastes. We'd also prefer the XP version, as Linux is relatively easy to use but it's still disorienting for long-time Windows users like ourselves."

“For this review though, you the reader might want to keep the beverages away from the system, as I’ll be flooding the veins of my test rig soon enough. That’s right, today on the bench is Thermaltake’s ProWater 850i – an all-in-one starter watercooling kit with a decidedly set of pretty packaging. Will it perform to expectations, or simply end up as another one of those mistaken purchases? Roll on over to the next page to find out.”

CLICK HERE FOR ThermalTake ProWater 850i Liquid Cooling System SHOPPING & PRICING

By taking the decent features and specifications that the ATI Radeon HD3850 GPU offers on its own and enhancing it with a few tweaks here and there, Sapphire just might be able to deliver on the marketing hype found on the box for this card... "Delivering mayhem to the mainstream".

Today, Sunbeamtech threatened the cooling industry leaders with its latest offering, The Core Contact. It is made up of four large diameter heat pipes that make contact with the HIS of the processor, the same speedy heat dissipation technology that a lot of cooler manufacturers have been adopting recently. So let’s take a look at how it fares against two of our favorite the Thermalright Ultra-120 and the Noctua U12P.

The HD4850 is a product which is aimed straight for the throat of Nvidia's 9800GTX and has actually incited a quick and dramatic response from the boys in green. After the initial performance reports of this card were released, Nvidia quickly knocked nearly $100 off the MSRP of their then $300 GTX so it could compete mono a mono with ATI's new wunderkind. Not only is the HD4850 seemingly perfectly suited for budget-minded gamers in the $200 price bracket, but it also offers a bevy of other features including audio out through HDMI as well as Havok physics support. The more features the better we say.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire Radeon HD4850 512MB Graphics Card SHOPPING & PRICING

"Notebooks from Toshiba were relatively often tested in our test lab, but mostly those were models with 15.4'' screen diagonal. Models with 13.3'' are present on market but not as much as 15.4''. It seems that manufacturers don't agree with consumers' claims that notebooks with 13.3'' screen have best ratio of mobility and functionality. Only one manufacturer that stands strongly with 13.3'' models is Apple with MacBook series."

CLICK HERE FOR Toshiba Satellite U300 SHOPPING & PRICING

Today its time for another case review, Thermaltake was kind enough to send us a sample of their XaserVI Mx case for review. This seems to be a nice looking medium tower case if we take a quick overview of it but the question is how good is the quality, and what kind of new features does it have that should give it the edge over its competitors? The main feature seems to be that the case is designed for both air and watercooling so lets see if there is enough space to squeeze in a watercooling setup.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake XaserVI Mx Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"Mmm, Mac hardware. Sharp. Purposeful. Tasty. Downright industrial designelicious. Half of the people who make the vaunted switch do so because of this keyboard. I mean, not literally this keyboard, but because of the engineering and style that this wireless device is the apex embodiment of. The keyboard is small because it's cut down; the keys are standard but a lot is sacrificed to make the whole package as miniscule as possible without cramping digits. I see a lot of potential in this input device, and not because it's portable. But I also can't help but wonder, can design be taken too far?"

CLICK HERE FOR Apple Wireless Keyboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"The Voyager GT is the high speed cousin of the well known Corsair Voyager USB stick. In this review we compare its performance to several other USB drives as well as the none-GT Voyager."

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair Voyager GT SHOPPING & PRICING

"AMD has launched three more Phenom processors that are sure to get people talking. The energy-efficient 65W Phenom processors are the ones to keep an eye on. They are priced under $200 and will be a nice upgrade path for those looking to drop in a processor and move on..."

... All-in-all, the MSI R4850-T2D512 which uses the Radeon HD4850 (RV770 Pro) GPU, is a very good performer ... it's shown that AMD/ATI are now finally back in the game.

CLICK HERE FOR MSI R4850-T2D512 SHOPPING & PRICING

BFGTech GeForce 9800 GTX H2OC WC Edition - BFG has come out with a new branding: H20C. As the name suggests the video card comes preinstalled with a waterblock and on top of that is clocked even higher than their top tier OCX line. We see how it compares to a reference 9800 GTX and an 8800 GT.

Pioneer has made a very solid, very inexpensive product and the brand name should certainly go a long way to assure the quality and investment is something that's worthwhile, if you're getting into HD movies. It does what it says on the tin and for once even the retail package is at least partially compelling if you don't already have some good disc burning software and Blu-ray playback software.

Hiper was kind enough to contact us to review the latest in their Type R series offering- The Mark 2 or MK 2. The metal connectors are a surprise omission, I loved them, but the mesh housing stays. New on the MK2 units is the increased efficiency rating and power support. The surprise addition is USB ports! Keep reading to find out what a power supply and USB have in common.

Shoppers today are faced with many options when choosing where to store their valuable data: from traditional optical media and hard drive based storage, to flash drives and even more exotic third party online storage - each with its own advantages and disadvantages. In this article Benchmark Reviews will look at one such option that's recently emerged in the storage market; the network-attached storage (NAS), in the form of the QNAP TS-209 Pro Gigabit SATA NAS. The NAS has lately gained popularity as more and more consumers realize the need for a reliable, cost effective, and easy to access centralized way to store their data.However, with so many competing products it's not always possible for buyers to easily compare what's on the market. Read on as Benchmark Reviews puts this "all-in-one" NAS through its paces.

CLICK HERE FOR QNAP TS-209 Pro Gigabit SATA NAS SHOPPING & PRICING

AMD is launching a three-pronged attack on the desktop CPU space today, with the introduction of three new quad-core Phenom X4 processors. One of the processors, the new 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition, is AMD's latest flagship desktop CPU. The other two, however, are somewhat surprising "green", low-power quad-cores dubbed the Phenom X4 9350e (2.0GHz) and Phenom X4 9150e (1.8GHz).

"It's hard to believe you can buy a 13.6-megapixel point-and-shoot digicam for under $349 USD from a top brand-not simply a piece of junk from some godforsaken outfit working in the farthest depths of this globalized world. Think 13 or 14MP is a lot? There's no end to the megapixel race as camera makers constantly try to outdo one another day-by-day. We've heard 14-plus megapixel compacts are due in September and we even expect 25MP D-SLRs to be introduced at the Photokina 2008 trade show around that time. Pretty amazing stuff. Now the question for buyers is pretty simple-is this total overkill and is an 8MP point-and-shoot like $249 USD Canon SD1100 IS really all you need? Or is a camera like the Sony DSC-W300 just your cup of pixels?"

CLICK HERE FOR Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 SHOPPING & PRICING

The X-Spice Kira is a SFF (small Form Factor) power supply which would be an ideal choice for those looking for a mid range power supply to place in their HTPC or other small project. The power supply is SLI compatable and is extremely quiet during use.

"Put simply, Corsair's TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF is a great kit. The DHX cooling system is still the best I've seen to date, cooling both a specially designed PCB and the ICs themselves. BGA based DDR2 modules conduct quite a bit of heat back into the PCB, so this is a very intelligent design that will likely prolong the life of just about any IC under the hood. Corsair's included "Airflow Fan" has also proved to be a very quiet and effective cooler that complements the DHX system nicely. The combination of the unique cooling solution and black PCB also make this a great looking kit."

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair Dominator 4GB PC2-8500 SHOPPING & PRICING

AMD's new Radeon HD 4870 is the first graphics card to feature GDDR5 memory. GDDR5 offers twice the memory bandwidth over previous GDDR generations which helps the HD 4870 gain a nice performance advantage over the HD 4850.

We have seen many cases here at XSReviews ranging from the conservative silent types to the somewhat more extravagant. When looking for cases many people want to have the best of both worlds: silence and looks. Yet although there are solutions available for such a customer, many fall short of delivering a truly silent gaming case.

Once upon a time, a company by the name of Coolmax sought to impress me with two of their Green Power branded power supplies, and failed. Now, they've sent their biggest and baddest at me, the Green Power 1350W, looking to rectify the situation.

When OCZ took over PC Power & Cooling, many people believed that they would stop marketing power supplies under their own brand name, however this has not been the case. Surprisingly their new units are not copies of PC Power & Cooling units as others would immediately assume, however even though their core design is different they are certainly sharing some design ethics.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ 800w EliteXStream Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

Looking to add some power and zip to your gaming experience? Seeking some redundancy for your server data without having to add a lot of extra drives? Michael takes a look at the very affordable Rocket Raid solution by HighPoint, the 2640x4. Pop in 4 drives and you have the ability to add both power and redundancy to your server or gaming rig. How well does it perform?

"Once considered the ultimate in geekdom, liquid cooling (also known as water cooling) has become almost mainstream. For those pushing the envelope, there's high performance (and high cost) kits from retailers such as Danger Den, DTek, or Swiftech. However, those kits usually require either a great deal of patience, or experience, during installation. For those less schooled in the art of exotic cooling, your choices are fairly limited. While there are no shortage of pre-fabbed kits, both internal and external, marketed at the novice, these kits usually forego quality to make themselves as easy to install and user friendly as possible."

CLICK HERE FOR Zalman Reserator XT SHOPPING & PRICING

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

" While the next generation of graphics cards from ATI are just around the corner, you can get some amazing performance with full open source support for a great price. Some of the readers might also be looking for a silent solution while having good performance and the Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Ultimate steps up to provide that. It combines a truly massive heatsink with the powerful 3870 GPU to create a fast and completely silent graphics card for your quiet PC. "

We have seen many newcomers to the computer cooling industry; and lately, many of these newcomers have been making a name for themselves, like Noctua and Zerotherm. These companies are now competing against well-established manufacturers like ThermalRight and Zalman, and today, we will be reviewing another heatsink and fan from SilenX - even another manufacturer that is quickly becoming a big player in the PC cooling industry.

Founded in 2005, Mvix USA is a company who believes in the concept of digital entertainment. With a product line that offers different versions of this ideal, Mvix is about getting your digital content displayed where it should be, on your television. Sure, you can watch your ripped movies on the PC monitor, but why not take it to the next level and enjoy that same content on a large screen TV?

CLICK HERE FOR Mvix MX-780HD Wireless HD Media Center SHOPPING & PRICING

“When testing a power supply, the greatest questions I have are going to always be as follows. How well is the PSU designed? How stable are the power rails? Can it produce its rated wattage reliably? Some worthwhile attention has been given to its overall design right down to the circuits. The OCZ 800 Watt EliteXStream Power Supply is obviously very well designed to produce 800 Watts of power, maintain steady, reliable voltages, and protect your system by offering very clean power without fail. Add the 80 Plus efficiency feature and you have the 800 Watt Editor's Choice.”

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ 800w EliteXStream Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

"For this review I will be taking a look at one of the new motherboards Abit are offering, the AX78 Phenom compatible motherboard, which I think is fair to say is aimed more towards the budget end of the market.."

CLICK HERE FOR abit AX78 SHOPPING & PRICING

Continuing with the philosophy of catering to the mid-range and high-end (enthusiast) markets, ASRock follows up the tri-SLI Penryn1600SLIX3-WIFI with a board utilizing a brand new Intel chipset, the X48TurboTwins-WiFi. The latest from ASRock is based off the popular Intel X48 chipset, a follow-up of the X38 chipset, and allows for high speed DDR3 memory support along with two full 16x PCIE slots. Along with the latest and greatest chipset, the board hosts a number of innovative features such as support for 1600 and 1333 FSB processors out-of-the box as well as hybrid DDR2 and DDR3 memory compatibility.

CLICK HERE FOR ASRock X48TurboTwins-WiFi Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

Benchmark Reviews has tested several different monitors over the past year, and even though they all offer nearly the same features there still seems to be a high premium paid for some names. Not SOYO. Last year we reviewed the 24-Inch DYLM24D6, which was an extremely popular widescreen monitor that could be purchased for less than $300. That was over a year ago, and so as you can imagine prices have come down a but since then. Today we get to offer another excellent value: SOYO 26-Inch Widescreen LCD Monitor MT-NI-DYLM26E6. Presently this monitor is available for only $379.99, which is an unbelievable price for any 26" widescreen LCD that can produce 1920x1200 WUXGA resolution.

CLICK HERE FOR SOYO 26-Inch Widescreen LCD Monitor DYLM26E6 SHOPPING & PRICING

"A song from the group Disturbed comes to mind here, "Down with the Sickness." The P45 Platinum is the first and only motherboard I have been able to get a Quad core processor over 500MHz. In fact, 515MHz was achieved and was stable enough to run some of our benchmark suite. 515MHz is a great validation screen shot but I wanted to find out where I could gain a measure of stability without having to cook my little piece of silicon. This I found at 491MHz with 1.424 volts and running the memory at a 1:1 ratio. Auto settings were good for the voltages up until 470MHz. The exception being the Vcore and Vdimm voltages. These were manually set from the start of the testing. After this point the GTL reference voltages played a large role in increasing the stability of the overclock. The GTL reference voltage settings needed for stability will vary from CPU to CPU. Much the same way no two CPUs will be identical in the voltages needed to reach a set clock speed. The MSI P45 has got some serious overclocking cajones! Just keep in mind this is air cooled through and through!"

CLICK HERE FOR MSI P45 Platinum SHOPPING & PRICING

"With the 3870s and the 4850s so closely matching in price, suddenly buying a second 3870 doesn’t seem like such a good idea. You can buy a 3870 for under $140.00 and have two 3870s in Crossfire (or a 3870 and a 3850 in CrossfireX depending on what you did back in the day). Alternatively, you can sell your 3870 and probably pull in a solid $90, and then buy a 4850, netting $100 and saving yourself the electricity bill of having two cards at the same time. Naturally, we have a problem with using just one card when we could so easily have two, but it really is the performance that counts."

"If your head is swirling with all the options for budget notebooks, here are our favorites for under $500."

CLICK HERE FOR Laptop SHOPPING & PRICING

"It's been a while since we tested notebook attended for professionals in 2D and 3D visualization. As buyers of these models are usually very demanding, manufacturing process and configuration are something that's always paid attention to. And that is why smaller producers keep themselves out from these waters leaving that market to biggest and most famous brands. Among "big boys" is surely HP and this time we represent you HP model Compaq 8710w."

CLICK HERE FOR HP Compaq 8710w SHOPPING & PRICING

In-Win have been producing quality computer chassis and cases for as long as I can remember, and in recent months, there's been a up-surge in gaming chassis ... so it's only natural for In-Win to come up with something for the gaming market. The In-Win GunDam Midi Tower ATX case offers flashy aesthetics, but also packs in some decent functionality.

CLICK HERE FOR In-Win GunDam Midi Tower ATX Case SHOPPING & PRICING

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

With the Tempest being NZXT's debut here on Overclockers Online, I expect it to be a rising name in the industry. The build quality on all parts of the case is excellent, and with a superior packaging method, it is very evident NZXT aims for the design and production of quality products.

CLICK HERE FOR NZXT Tempest Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"SCX 4300 is newest product from very successful Samsung SCX series A4 monochrome laser multifunctional printers. There were no revolutionary products in this product category for a long time, but SCX 4300 is device that brings few innovations regarding to SCX 4200. These innovations are related only to esthetics and printing speed. Differences between SCX 4300 and its predecessor SCX 4200 are: insignificant shape change, black color and a little bit faster printing results. Connection with computer is realized through fast USB 2.0 connection, and direct communication between user and device is achieved through a large number of command keys and two-line display."

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung SCX 4300 SHOPPING & PRICING

If youre looking for a slim compact SATA drive enclosure, the Vantec NexStar MX is one to consider! Vantec has hit a homerun with this simple, easy to use 2 drive enclosure. The enclosure is barely thicker than 2 drives stacked on top of each other, and only slightly longer. The enclosure is designed to operate as 2 separate drives, or as one larger JBOD drive.

CLICK HERE FOR Vantec NexStar MX Dual Drive Enclosure SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today for review I've got a great product from our friends at USBGeek, it's a Solar Charger with Dual USB ports, it features selective voltage output, dual USB ports, long battery life, it includes an AC adapter and a car power adapter, and has several types of tips for various phones and electronic gadgets . In my time with this little gadget I've found it to be very well made, useful and just an all-around great little device that anyone would be happy with. "

Yuin's PK1 earbuds were all the rage when they first hit the market quite a while ago. Since then Yuin has further upped the stakes by introducing the new and improved OK-series earphones. Today we take a look at the PK1s to see if the former earbud champion can still compete in today's market.

"It seems as of late the nForce 790i is finally making its rounds through our labs, most likely because of the GTX 280 performing as well as it does, especially in SLI and Tri SLI configurations.

So far we have had the ZOTAC board cross us; now it’s time for MSI, one of the biggest motherboard makers in Taiwan, and one of the biggest presences here in Australia to have its time in the sun. Today we have been given the P7N2 Diamond motherboard. This baby is aimed at being the top gun of all 790i SLI boards out there. While that’s a good aim, does it perform? – Let’s see."

CLICK HERE FOR MSI P7N2 Diamond 790i Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

Performance on the QX9770 was exemplary, easily the fastest CPU or system I have ever tested with the exception being the dual QX9775 SkullTrail system which is faster, but of course that is with two CPUs that are virtually identical to the single QX9770 here. The QX9770 easily beats the Phenom X4 9850 CPU, but the two CPUs are in completely different price leagues and not a fair comparison as the person wanting a QX9770 will not likely look at an AMD CPU for their high-end computer. The extra L2 cache really shines in applications and games. As our main video gaming test CPU, the QX9770 when combined with a high end dual card like the 9800GX2 or HD3870X2.

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

"The graphics on the Qismio x305 will be powered by the yet to be announced NVIDIAGeForce 9800M GTX graphics card, which has 1GB of video memory. For those that still want to game, but save some hard earned dollars we overheard that consumers can customize the notebook with the less expensive GeForce 9700M GT graphics card rather than the GeForce 9800M GTX. NVIDIA hasn't said much about this un-released graphics card, but they did have the Toshiba Qosmio x305 notebook on display at a Microsoft Corporation event this week called the Games for Windows Presents: The Big Picture..."

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"Our today's article may seem boring to some of you, because we are going to examine another reincarnation of reference cards, packed into Foxconn's boxes. However, NVIDIA uses manufacturing facilities of this very company to produce its reference cards."

"Thermalright is now set to further capitalize on the success of the Ultra-120 eXtreme with the release the TRue Black 120. While physically identical to the Ultra-120 eXtreme, other than the new black nickel finish, the TRue Black comes with another set of clips to attach a second fan in a push/pull configuration and Thermalright has thrown in a small tube of their improved thermal compound, Chill Factor 2."

"If you've never heard of Meridian, well, I hate to say it, but it's probably because you're just like me and can't afford to spend your entire annual income on a pair of loudspeakers. While I think it's safe to say that the F80 won't set you back that much, it's definitely not a cheap audio solution either. Let's take a closer look and see what kind of value the unit has to offer..."

If you're the type who thinks of 2.5" drive technology only in terms of notebook products, then recently, Western Digital probably helped expand your horizons a bit. With the release of their VelociRaptor 300GB SATA hard drive, mainstream users were exposed to the advantages of the high transfer rates associated with 2.5" platters rotating at 10K RPM, with four access heads pulling data. Though packed in a 3.5" form-factor for desktop system compatibility, the 2.5", dual 150GB platter platform that the VelociRaptor was built on allows it to outperform virtually all standard 3.5" SATA drives on the market today, even WD's 10K RPM Raptor WD1500 series.

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