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| Thursday Morning News, 7:30 am Mountain Time | |
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Asus EAH3850 X2 (i4u) "Today we are checking out the Asus EAH3850 X2 dual GPU video card. This is one of the fastest ATI graphics cards you will find. If you only have space for one card and you prefer ATI, the EAH3850 X2 is worth a serious look. After all the testing was done there was no doubt that the Asus EAH3850 X2 is the fastest ATI video card I have tested. It isn’t as fast as the top cards from NVIDIA like the 9800 GX2, but it’s not as expensive either. The Asus EAH3850 X2 retails for around $350." ASUS P5E3 Premium WiFi-AP (techgage) "X48 is new, but there are many boards already begging for your dollars. We are taking a look at the most robust of them all, the P5E3 Premium, which includes built-in WiFi, a great board design and fantastic overclocking abilities. It would almost be a perfect board if it weren't for the $375 price tag." VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 Overclocked Edition (overclockersclub) "Overclocking a pre-overclocked card? Can it be pushed any further? The answer is yes. It didn't take me long to discover that this video card does not like to be pushed, but I was able to obtain a minimal overclock on the already overclocked beast of a video card. I reached 850MHz on the core clock from the stock frequency of 840MHz, and on the memory I obtained a frequency of 975MHz over the stock 960MHz. It's not much, but we'll see if it gives a performance increase at all." NVIDIA Hybrid SLI and HybridPower Benchmarked and Explained (legitreviews) "NVIDIA Hybrid SLI and HybridPower technology are welcomed additions to the enthusiast computing scene and give consumers another reason to purchase NVIDIA platforms. Having the ability to turn off the discrete graphics at will is one of the coolest new features we have seen on a PC. It's amazing that it took this long for someone to figure it out, but the time has finally come. NVIDIA Hybrid SLI technology was found to be pretty solid for being brand new technology.The slight performance decrease was expected, but the ability to use HybridPower seems to outweigh the performance hit." Hyper Sonic AG2 Notebook (techpowerup) "With the recent purchase of Hyper Sonic OCZ has added another company to their portfolio, further diversifying their product range. Hypersonic's AG2 Notebook, which we have on our testbench today has been engineered to be light weight and portable with less than 1.8 kg. The design also looks stunning with its a high quality, glossy paint." S3 Chrome 430 GT (tweaktown) "S3 hasn’t stopped releasing graphics cards, but we just don’t seem to hear much about them anymore. Hopefully that’s going to change with the release of the Chrome 430 GT. It’s a low-end card that seems to be capable of taking on the big boys at NVIDIA and AMD. Trying to fire up GPU-Z just resulted in an error due to none of it being able to be recognized, though the core comes in at 625MHz and there is 256MB of GDDR2 memory running at a speed of 500MHz DDR. We have a 64-bit interface, 64nm core, PCI Express 2.0 support, Direct X 10.1 and Open GL 2.1 support." NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX (digit-life) "While renaming products to GeForce 9xxx, NVIDIA launched another graphics card based on G92 -- GeForce 9800 GTX. It's the most powerful single-GPU graphics card, designed to replace GeForce 8800 GTX (and probably GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB in the nearest future). However, at this moment GeForce 9800 GTX stands in between GeForce 9800 GX2 and GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB." ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe - nForce 780a SLI for Phenom Arrives (pcper) "The drawbacks to the Hybrid Power though outweigh the positives in this current implementation. First, only the 9800 GTX and the 9800 GX2 graphics cards are supported with the 780a SLI chipset - that leaves a whole host of NVIDIA users with 9600 GTs, 8800 GTS and GT cards that probably think they have the right to Hybrid Power technology since their cores are based on the same that rests under the hoods of the 9800 GTX and GX2. Also, the REAL KILLER here is that NVIDIA is promoting the nForce 780a SLI chipset as an enthusiast platform, and pushing Hybrid Power with these high end cards, yet the fact that the motherboard GPU can only output at 1920x1200 resolutions is not-so-cleverly hidden." OCZ ReaperX HPC DDR3-1333 2GB Memory Kit (thinkcomputers) "In a few short years, OCZ has really made its mark in the PC enthusiast world. They have branched out into power supplies, CPU coolers, thermal compound, peripherals, flash media, they even have a new phase-change cooler for those extreme overclockers that need sub-zero temps. But, OCZ's forte is still high-performance system memory. Today I will be looking at OCZ's latest offering in the ReaperX series, the ReaperX PC3-1066 (DDR3-1333) 2 gig kit. Will the DDR3 ReaperX prove to be the awesome overclocker that its DDR2 little brother is?" Technobabble (games, events, software, interviews)
Guide to Windows Photo Gallery (tkarena) Cases, Cooling, PSUs
Thermaltake M9 (overclockersclub) Other
VL System M-Play Blast LCD Case Display & Remote Control (tweaknews) |
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| Tuesday Afternoon News, 5:45 pm Mountain Time | |
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NVIDIA nForce 7 AMD Series - ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe (legitreviews) "More than five months ago, NVIDIA announced the industry’s first hybrid technology for PC platforms during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. During this time, they also showed off the nForce 780a SLI motherboards that were due out in Q1 2008. It seems things got pushed back as NVIDIA is officially announcing the nForce 7 series today in Q2 2008. We compared the nForce 780a SLI to the AMD 780G since we wanted to test out the integrated graphics and PureVideo HD functionality as well as general performance. It seems to have paid off; the test results were interesting as the HD DVD playback testing over the HDMI output showed that NVIDIA passed up ATI when it comes to offloading the CPU usage. NVIDIA claims that an HT3-based Phenom CPU is required to provide the necessary bandwidth when playing HD video using the motherboard GPU. Our testing showed this is not true, but NVIDIA claims moving from a HT1 processor to HT3 will give the integrated graphics the bandwidth it needs to better render HD content. This is something we will check out later, because if we are impressed with what a 2.5GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core CPU can do with HT1, we'd better be sitting down for some Phenom 50-series action.." Preview - MSI P45 "Eaglelake" Motherboards (hardwarezone) "With Intel's X48 chipsets trickling in retail, it's almost time for the mainstream P45 motherboards to follow suit. All the major vendors are preparing for their upcoming P45 boards and we managed to snag a couple of demo units from MSI for a sneak preview." ASUS M3N-HT 780a SLi (overclockersclub) "The ASUS M3N-HT has many upgradable options such as the ability to run triple SLi if you have the cards available, or Dual SLi if you do not want to spend that much on GPUs. The temperature test with the Mempipe was not the greatest drop in temperature, but when a user is overclocking, every degree is a help to get the maximum out of his system. The Express Gate feature is a noble idea with a wealth of uses, especially if you need to get online to get a driver when you cannot get Windows to operate." Asus M3N-HT Deluxe (neoseeker) "Today NVIDIA unveils its 780a series of motherboard chipsets for Socket AM2. The new chipset supports the best integrated NVIDIA graphics yet, including full support for HDMI and high definition playback - and if that was not enough, you can do up to triple SLI on the 780a!" Sapphire Hybrid CrossFire 780G (modders-inc) "Are you in the market for a small form factor m-ATX motherboard that can give you blistering performance for your multimedia needs, plus the ability to play the latest Direct X 10 games? And as a bonus you can install a second card to gain CrossFireX for your games. Then you have to check out the Sapphire PURE Hybrid CrossFire 780G Innovation Motherboard." Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe 780a (aphnetworks) "An Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe!? What's that? Hey, if you are asking that question, you probably forgot already that there's actually another manufacturer other than Intel that makes CPUs; which goes by the name of "AMD". It's interesting how quickly we forget about the days of glory for AMD and their Athlon 64 back in 2003. But the most important thing is that, AMD is still 'sort of' alive for some competition against microprocessor giant Intel to keep the CPU market 'just sort of' nice and fair. When I received the Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe motherboard for review last month (Which was still on NDA for the chipset), I was excited to see what kind of motherboards were produced currently on the AMD platform. Combined with NVIDIA's flagship 780a chipset, it certainly brought back memories of the whole NVIDIA-AMD combination that ruled back in the days of the MSI K8N-Neo2 Platinum, DFI LanParty Ultra-D, and the Asus A8N-SLI Premium. Driving down to a local com! puter store to purchase an AMD CPU to go with this review (I mean, I don't actually have an AMD AM2 CPU, haha), I was contemplating on whether I was going to buy a Phenom X4 or just some low cost Athlon 64 X2. Well, to be honest, if I was going to spend over $200 on a processor, it would probably be an Intel Core 2 Quad and not a Phenom X4. To make a long story short, I went with a mid-priced Athlon 64 X2 4400+. Let me tell you this -- I don't really find it funny to pay over $80 with tax for an AMD dual core CPU at this time, partially because I was forced to let Memory Express rip me off -- and really, everyone knows that they aren't the cheapest place to buy computer parts from. But hey, what the heck -- let's pop in this CPU and see how the M3N-HT Deluxe is worthwhile if you prefer the AMD route for your current AM2 computer or whatever your story may be." Nvidia's nForce 780a SLI chipset (techreport) "The nForce 780a SLI is the first Nvidia chipset to take full advantage of Phenom processors, and it comes with a novel motherboard GPU that enables Hybrid SLI. Keep reading for the goods on Hybrid SLI and how the 780a stacks up against AMD's 790FX chipset." NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI Motherboard Round-Up, Asus, MSI (hothardware) "It is hard to believe that it has been almost two full years since NVIDIA released a new flagship chipset for the AMD platform. Since the nForce 590i SLI's official release in May of 2006, NVIDIA has introduced a handful of mid-range and more affordable chipsets for AMD processors, but the 590i SLI was it at the high-end, despite AMD's release of new quad-core Phenom processors and competing 7-series chipsets. Early this year while NVIDIA outlined their plans to mix things up at the high-end of their AMD chipset line-up with the IGP-equipped nForce 780a SLI, but it has taken quite a bit of time to bring that product to market. Today though, we present to you three nForce 780a SLI-based motherboards (two from Asus and one from MSI), that are sure to pique the interest of all of the AMD fans out there. For the first time since the Phenom launch, AMD fans will now be able to pair up NVIDIA's flagship graphics configurations with an AMD CPU and exploit all of the features inherent to both." OCZ PC2-6400 ReaperX HPC 4GB Kit (techpowerup) "The OCZ ReaperX HPC memory series is the newest variant of the heatpipe cooled memory available from the manufacturer. Its new design improves on the cooling with dual heatpipes and finer fins to keep the parts cool. In our testing we saw excellent performance going all the way to DDR2-736 at 3-3-3-12." AMD Phenom X3 processor family performance (techspot) "The latest processor series from AMD is a little unusual as it makes use of not one, two, or even four cores, but rather three! That’s right, the new Phenom X3 carries an unusual core configuration, and I guess the question most of you are probably asking yourselves (as we did) is why? The most reasonable explanation is that this still allows AMD to sell Phenom X4 processors with a defective core, minimizing their loss. Second, it gives some leverage for AMD to compete with Intel’s dual-core processors, being able to pull the "additional core" card." Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT TurboForce 512MB (aphnetworks) "While NVIDIA's 65nm G92 core is an optimized derivative of NVIDIA's original 90nm G80 core to a certain extent, cards based on the G92 like the 8800GT and 8800GTS 512MB is nothing but a success amongst performance enthusiasts -- and there's a good reason why. Our previous review of the Asus 8800GT TOP back in January showed that, in general, the 8800GT is not only a very capable card in terms of 3D performance and comes at a great price depending on the board manufacturer and retailer you are purchasing from, but are also very power efficient for what it offers. Last month, we got another variation of the 8800GT for our review -- this time, from Gigabyte. The Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT TurboForce 512MB is not just about great performance, however. Utilizing a shorter, unique signature Gigabyte-blue non-reference PCB, along with a Zalman copper cooler, combined with Gigabyte's custom overclocking and overvolting software to squeeze the heck out of this card, ho! w does it step up against the rest? Let's check this card out and run it through our set of benchmarks. And of course -- overclocking." Technobabble (games, events, software, interviews)
Age of Conan Beta After 24 Hours (bittdaily) Cases, Cooling, PSUs
NZXT Alpha Classical Series Mid-Tower Case (benchmarkreviews) Other
Thermaltake BlacX Hard Drive Docking Station (overclockersclub) |
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| Monday Evening News, 8:50 pm Mountain Time | |
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Zotac GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB AMP! Edition (hardwarezone) "Zotac's AMP! Edition graphics cards have featured impressively high clock speeds and the company applies this formula to NVIDIA's new single card flagship, the GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB. Does the extreme overclocking work as intended?" Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC-9200 (techwarelabs) "Artiom takes a look at the fastest DDR2 memory currently available from Kingston in their HyperX line. This memory is meant to blur the lines and crank out pure speed and performance. How well does it do?" MSI GeForce 9600GT 1GB OC (tweaktown) "We saw MSI mix it up just the other week with the 9600GT by overclocking it and going down the aftermarket cooler route. Aesthetically speaking, the card really didn’t do a lot for us, but as we dived deeper into the testing of the card we became pleasantly surprised by the performance the cooler offered. The latest 9600GT variant from MSI sports the same cooler along with an extra 512MB of GDDR3, giving us a grand total of 1GB. The card also carries with it the same overclock we saw on the 512MB model which should aid in getting some extra performance over stock clocked offerings." ECS N8800GT-256MX (legitreviews) "The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB card has been around since November 2007 and now, six months later some very interesting versions of this card are appearing on the market. The ECS N8800GT-256MX is one of these cards! It appears that ECS has placed 512MB of GDDR3 memory on the N8800GT-256MX, but only enabled 256MB of the graphics memory through the BIOS. Once a quick BIOS flash is performed on the card it turned into a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB graphics card for the price of a 256MB card! The ECS N8800GT 256MB packs in double the memory with an available BIOS update giving you the performance of a true 8800 GT 512MB. The extra memory along with a nearly silent heat sink/fan combo and a $169 price tag assures it to be a great success!" Diamond's Viper Radeon HD 3650 1GB (hothardware) "While the average PC enthusiast may gawk endlessly over pages of reviews of high-end power-hungry graphics cards, jaw-slackened by the frame rates and 3DMark score that he or she might find there, at the end of the month it is the low to mid-range card that is purchased more often than not in the retail sector. Price typically is a primary consideration, but it's not the only concern. Availability, compatibility, and other issues factor in to a buyers decision as well. Today we take a look at Diamond's lower cost, mainstream Radeon HD 3650 that increases total on-board memory to 1GB, but in doing so, uses lower cost, slower GDDR2 chips. In the pages ahead, we'll aim to find out if additional on-board memory really impacts performance more so than a smaller footprint of faster GDDR3 memory. The answer may definitely surprise you..." Foxconn 9800GTX Extreme OC (bjorn3d) "Bjorn3D has previously reviewed the performance difference of the stock 9800GTX versus various high-end and mainstream graphic cards: namely the 8 series cards (review). We are fortunate to receive the Foxconn GeForce 9800 GTX Extreme OC card which features clock speed of 780/1900/2360 (core/shader/memory) as opposed to the reference speed of 675/1688/2200. Today, we will put this card against other mid-range graphic cards ranging from the last generation G80 to current generation G92 cards and even the HD card from AMD." ASRock Penryn 1600SLIX3-WiFi 680i (thinkcomputers) "ASRock came on board in 2002, not long after I started building my own rigs. In those six short years, they have come up with some remarkably innovative designs for economy motherboards. Today I will be looking at the ASRock Penryn 1600SLIX3-WiFi motherboard. ASRock has taken the nVidia 680i SLI chipset, given it the capability of running the new Core 2 Extreme 1600mHz FSB processors, added WiFi, and placed that in an economy-minded board." XFX GeForce 9800GTX Black Edition (gamepyre) "The bundle and support are very well with the XFX Black Edition GeForce 9800GTX, it comes with COD4, which is one of the hottest PC gaming titles available at this moment and costs around $49.95 at most e-tailors or retailers making the card a more attractive buy. Support and warranty options are well taken care of BY XFX as they take very good care of their customers in the after purchase environment and quick RMA return times. Overall this card is a solid piece of equipment that excels in the 1920X1200 and below resolutions with moderate AA and AF settings. In the 1680 and 1280 resolutions you can turn up the AA and AF settings to their maximum values and get great FPS gameplay. Not quite a gamers gold card, but definitely a Gamers Silver card award winner." ASUS EN9600GT Silent 512MB (techgage) "Looking for excellent gaming performance but also want to keep PC noise to a minimum? The EN9600GT Silent from ASUS is the card to buy. It couples the power of the 9600 GT with pure silence, and costs little more than the stock model, making it a great choice for either the HTPC or desktop." Technobabble (games, events, software, interviews)
Assassin’s Creed Xbox 360 (tech-reviews) Cases, Cooling, PSUs
Noctua NH-U12P Heatpipe CPU Cooler (benchmarkreviews) Other
Corsair Voyager 32GB Flash Drive (pro-clockers) |
