MSI N9800GT GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
The MSI N9800GT 512M OC is a factory overclocked GeForce 9800 GT graphics card that has an improved cooling solution. This sub $120 graphics card has a core clock frequency of 660MHz and the 512MB GDDR3 frame buffer runs at 1900MHz. This is a nice bump up from the factory clocked cards that are 600MHz core and 1800MHz memory. Read on to see how it does and if it can overclock further! In the time I’ve had to spend with this card, I haven’t really found much to dislike about it. The card has performed well in Folding@Home and in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Of course, I didn’t try to push the card to ridiculous resolutions, as gamers that own 24” or 30” monitors probably aren’t looking at sub-$120 video card to run them. Even with Crysis Warhead, where I thought the card could stumble and fall, as many higher priced cards did with the original Crysis, the 9800GT from MSI was able to play the game fairly smoothly at 1280x1024.

Cooler Master Hyper Z600R CPU Cooler @ Tweaktown
Today we are looking at the Cooler Master Hyper Z600R, the first product in Cooler Masters revised arsenal that is ready to battle flagship processors from Intel and AMD. The Hyper Z600R is a large cooler with premium packaging and the ability to add a second 120mm fan. From the looks of the design the cooler screams high efficiency with low acoustic interference. Overclockers will like the coolers ability to add a second fan and average users will like the quiet nature of this beast. Next in our list of cooler reviews will be the long awaited article for Cooler Masters flagship V8 air cooler. Be sure to check back in to see the results when both coolers go head to head, but for now enjoy the Hyper Z600R.

Lian Li PC - A77 Aluminum Computer Case @ TechwareLabs
Have you managed to cram as much hardware as possible into your rig? Need a crane to lift your case? Why not shed a few unwanted pounds from your machine by transferring it into a new aluminum home? Join RTM as he looks at the Lian Li A77 Aluminum Case.

Western Digital's Caviar Green hard drive @ Tech Report
To be fair, the Caviar GP's performance was surprisingly good for a drive whose platters spun at close to 5,400RPM. In some tests, it was even faster than terabyte drives spinning at a full 7,200RPM. The GP also lived up to its energy-efficient billing, sucking half the power of some of its terabyte rivals, all while barely making a whisper. Since its release, a reshuffling of Western Digital's hard drive branding scheme has transformed the Caviar GP into the Caviar Green. Now it's time for the drive itself to change. The original Caviar GP reached the terabyte mark with four 250GB platters, but the latest model we'll be looking at today has been upgraded to 333GB platters, of which it needs only three. The higher areal density of the Caviar Green's new platters promise improved performance, and since the drive is spinning only three of them, power consumption should drop as well. On all fronts, then, this latest Caviar Green looks better than the original.

Vantec Aeroflow FX 120 VAF-1225 Heatsink Review @ Frostytech
The Vantec Aeroflow FX 120 heatsink features a special base plate with three exposed 8mm diameter copper heatpipes, just like Xigmatek's very high performing "Heatpipe Direct Touch" technology. The heatpipes transfer heat directly to a large aluminum fin cooling tower above, and aside from a fairly quiet white 120mm fan the Aeroflow FX 120 is a simple and effective heatsink.

Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Gaming Keyboard @ Benchmark Reviews
Over the past few years, gaming on the PC has transformed from a niche hobby to a market in and of itself. More and more gaming-grade devices come out each year. Some accessories are just hype or a means to squeeze a few extra dollars out of unsuspecting customers whereas others genuinely make the gaming experience that much better. At the same time gaming hardware has also come to be synonymous with expensive hardware as gaming hardware frequently pushes the current norms and standards to their limits of usability, functionality and style (or taste in the worst case scenario). The Microsoft Sidewinder X6 tries to be the keyboard for the gamer's gamer. It features the ability to program 90 macros using 6 proprietary buttons, the number pad, and 3 banks. It has backlighting for playing the dark, cruise control, on the fly macro programming, large knobs for volume and backlight control and audio shortcut buttons. It features keys designed for quick presses and fast action.

Sapphire Radeon 4870 Toxic Edition @ TechwareLabs
Today, we bring to you the newest version of Sapphires HD4870, the Toxic Edition. This card should be the best single 4870 on the market, but can it compete on the same level as nVidias GTX280 and for half the price? Join Jack as we test to see how Toxic this card really is.

Asus P6T Deluxe & Intel Nehalem CPU @ InsideHW
It’s been awhile since rumors about new Intel’s platform had started or more precisely about new processors with code name Nehalem and X58 controller logic. We managed to provide one Nehalem processor, for a very short time period, and we paired it with Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard based on X58 chipset. New motherboard, new chipset and new CPU architecture! Short time that we had for testing didn’t allow us to test all details of new CPU (just few benchmark results) but we had enough time to do a proper motherboard test.

Thermaltake M9 Case Review @ PCSTATS
Thermaltake's M9 caseis a straight forward case with all the nods towards keeping itself modern and useful. It stands 17" tall and 7.5" wide and is constructed out of plain old SECC steel, glossy black plastic, and mesh grating along its front bays. There's room inside for six 5.25" optical drives and three 3.5" bays in its default configuration, although that can be changed to open up as many as nine 5.25" bays by removing the hard drive cage.

Sapphire HD 4550 Video Card @ Pro-Clockers
And if you are one of these people that don't need the biggest baddest video adapter on the market just something that will get you by and play your videos at a clean crisp rate then the Sapphire HD 4550 may be up your alley. The HD 4550 is no bottom of the line GPU but a card that boasts 512MB of DDR3 memory at 900MHz and a 600MHz core. At $60 you will not have to settle with just what will get you by as the card supports Crossfire and HDMI with 7.1 audio support. But with all this being said how will the HD 4550 stack up on the ladder of other cards offered by Sapphire and ATI.

ATi Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs. nVIDIA GeForce 9800GT 512MB @ InsideHW
The fact is that nVIDIA these days lives on its reputation, considering that except for GTX280 and GTX260 (their place is reserved for the top of offer), nVIDIA doesn’t have anything new to show. Besides, trend of renaming the products becomes a bit irritating habit, cause real new product from “sub 250€” class isn’t introduced for a long time. G92 chip is still promoted even though it was “de facto” incredible product one year ago and that is for IT industry too long. Perhaps it wouldn’t feel that long if competition isn’t hyperactive, but as this became ATi’s new business policy, it’s quite evidently that nVIDIA isn’t held in high esteem.

Cooler Master Hyper Z600-R Heatpipe CPU Cooler Review @ Tweaknews
Cooler Master has a real winner in their new Hyper Z600R CPU cooler. Whether used actively, with the included 120mm blue LED fan, or passively you'll get top-notch performance and beautiful aesthetics. The X-shaped Hyper with its decorative top cover makes quite an impression and its large size and six heatpipes seem to provide the one-two punch that beats down high CPU temperatures.

NVIDIA nForce 730i / GeForce 9300 Chipset Review @ Tweaktown
Now Intel has the CPU of choice and with that comes support left, right and centre. While Intel has a huge array of chipsets for its own processor, support also comes from another source, that being from the biggest 3D chipset maker, NVIDIA. While Intel has the best enthusiast chipsets out for the platform, Intel’s integrated graphics platforms simply can’t compete with the likes of NVIDIA’s IGP based setups. This is simply because NVIDIA has all of its 3D chip technology to call on for integration into its chipsets, keeping it ahead of chipzilla.

Brando SATA HDD Multimedia Dock @ Hardware Bistro
Last two weeks ago, we just completed a unique product review; Unitek SATA HDD Multi-Function Dock. Today here we received another interesting HDD docking from Brando as well called SATA HDD Multimedia Dock. This docking is not only can be used for 2.5" and 3.5" SATA HDD for data transferring but also act as a media player where the files can be played on TV without connecting to PC.

HIS Radeon 4830 @ Guru3D
See, right now every move that NVIDIA makes is being counter-acted by ATI. And today they are launching a new mid-range class product. It's called the Radeon HD 4830 and again is a product that will bring a couple of surprises in the performance versus price ratio, to fight against the 'new' GeForce 9800 GT. A sub-$150 HD 4000 series video card that will take on NVIDIA, in the shape of the Radeon HD 4830. We expect its price to settle at 119-129 USD. This card will have 640 stream processors, a 256-bit memory interface and GDDR3 memory, and slot in-between the Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4670. What is the HD 4830 targeted against? Well, considering the NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT and 9800 GT retail for around $130, it seems likely AMD would continue the pressure by also aiming for these products.

HIS Radeon 4830 @ Elite Bastards
As with RV670, the Radeon HD 4800 series employs a 256-bit memory controller, but replaces its predecessors ring bus design with a distributed controller, which supports GDDR3, GDDR4 and GDDR5 memory types. RV770 also features AMD's second generation UVD video decoding engine, which now supports dual stream decoding (i.e. handling two High Definition video streams so that playback of both is GPU accelerated) and dynamic contrast enhancement. Full HDMI output is still supported, with the addition of full eight-channel audio output with support for all of the major formats used by DVD and Blu-Ray movies. The Radeon HD 4830 features that cut-down RV770 core we mentioned with a couple of SIMD cores disabled, as well as clock speeds lower than the higher priced Radeon HD 4850, which sees it utilising a GPU core clock of 575MHz, with the 512MB of GDDR3 memory on-board clocked at 900MHz (1800MHz effective).

Reference Board @ Legit Reviews
When you compare the specifications on the three single GPU Radeon HD 4800 series cards you can see how they stack up across the board. Notice that the max board power remains the same on the Radeon HD 4830, so power consumption and temperatures should be close to what is seen on the Radeon HD 4850 graphics card. The clock rate on the Radeon HD 4830 is 575MHz with the memory clock being 900MHz. The Radeon HD 4830, 4850 and 4870 all have 956 Million transistors and are built on the 55nm process.

Reference Board @ HEXUS
Talking figures when compared to Radeon HD 4850, the '30 drops two of the HD 4850's 10 SIMD cores - each comprising of 80 stream processors - bringing the total down to 640. Consequently, as two 'cores' have been removed and the texturing subsystem is linked in with each, data sampling and filtering go down a commensurate amount, too. In short, Radeon HD 4830 has 25 per cent less shading and texturing ability, based on a clock-for-clock comparison. The actual drop is higher because the core/shader speed has been reduced, as well. Fewer stream processors and a chopping of one ROP portion, down from 16 to 12, are matched up to the above-noted lower frequencies, with the core and shaders operating at 575MHz and GDDR3 memory at 1,800MHz. If you're interested, this leads to the Radeon HD 4850 having a 35 per cent higher peak GFLOPs throughput rate, 35 per cent higher fillrate, and 11 per cent higher memory bandwidth. What we can determine from these numbers is that HD 4830's 3D performance will be around 80 per cent of its bigger brother's, and pricing is such that the RRP is also around 80 per cent - it all makes rather tidy sense.

PowerColor Radeon 4830 @ TechPowerUP
PowerColor has successfully improved on the AMD reference design by adding a native HDMI output which comes in handy when you want to connect your big TV set. The other big change doesn't seem too wise to me though. PowerColor's big fan looks mighty at first sight, but the default fan settings make it a less than pleasant experience. For a card in this performance class the fan is way too noisy. On the other hand the temperatures are lower than on the AMD reference design. But personally I prefer a few degrees higher GPU temperature in return for a quiet card.

Radeon 4830 vs Geforce 9800GT @ NeoSeeker
At the heart of each HD 4800 video card is a RV770 GPU. The HD 4830 features the RV770LE. Basically the RV770LE is a laser-neutered version of the same GPU found in the HD 4850 and HD 4870. One cool thing about the HD 4830 is that there really won't be one standard design -- each board partner will be releasing there own variation. There won't be a wave of reference board design HD 4830's, and then a second wave of overclocked, customized versions -- as is often the case for 'marquee' models, like the HD 4870. There is a good chance each PCB will have a slightly different layout. Expect HD 4830's coming from the following folks at: VisionTek, HIS, Palit, Asus, PowerColor, GeCube, Diamond MM, Sapphire, Micro-star International (MSI), Gigabyte, and Club3D.

Western Digital 300GB VelociRaptor Hard Drive @ TechARP
Western Digital may be marketing their new VelociRaptor family of high-speed hard drives as enterprise-class hard drives but they are also very popular with hardware enthusiasts who just cannot resist their 10,000 RPM spindle speed. Everything just seems a little faster when you use a hard drive that spins at such a high speed. To cater to this exclusive group of enthusiasts, Western Digital first introduced the Raptor and Raptor X hard drives with capacities of 36 GB to 150 GB. These Raptors have now evolved into the next-generation Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drives, that not only boast twice the storage capacity but also managed to do it in a much smaller 2.5" drive form factor! Let's find out just how much faster this drive is compared to the 10K RPM WD Raptor X and 7200 RPM hard drives!

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 260 AMP²! Edition @ Benchmark Reviews
Well the smoke has cleared, the dust settled and most of the rumors and hype have been laid to rest with regard to the first phase of NVIDIA's launch. For the last month or so the revised editions of the GTX 200 series are beginning to appear. Today at Benchmark Reviews it is our pleasure to review the Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! Edition. This graphics solution reputedly takes the GTX 260 to the next level of performance primarily due to NVIDIA's second generation architecture coupled the addition of 24 streaming processors, upping the total to 216. We fully intend to focus all our technology and energy to either prove or disprove that allegation.

Patriot Memory PC3-12800 Extreme Performance 4GB Kit Review @ Club Overclocker
Finally DDR3 is starting to come down in price. Even better, the latencies are starting to come down and the performance is going up. All is right with the world. Patriot Memory has just sent us over a 4GB kit of 1600MHz memory with latencies of 7-7-7-20. I'm pretty excited to see how the performance of the kit is going to be so let's just jump in and see what happens.

MSI Geforce 9600 GT 1Gb Hybrid Freezer VGA Review @ MadShrimps
The MSI N9600GT Hybrid Freezer is equipped with 1Gb DDR3 memory and features an unique cooling solution which works passively when in 2D mode, and only makes noise when running 3D applications or games. MSI overclocked the GPU and Shader for increased performance, let´s find out how it compares to a vanilla Geforce 9600 GT.

22 inch Wide TFT Roundup (Asus, Benq, Samsung, LG) @ InsideHW
For every period on time there is optimal monitor (screen) size. Nowadays, smaller monitor isn’t cheap enough and isn’t worth of savings while the bigger one still doesn’t justify the difference in price. The thing is that lately, mid range monitors and even from low range, become very quality pieces of hardware. And if you pick by random any of them, there are small odds that you’ll chose “piece of junk”. As result of these changes on local and global market it is actually very favorable state for nowadays buyers. Now you can have bigger monitor on the table with more than acceptable price especially if you buy it on sales. So, according to all that, wide monitor with 22-inch diagonal is the best buy at the moment. Keeping that fact in mind, we gathered eleven models that can be classified as cheaper and we did comparison test.

Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Case Review @ PCSTATS
At nearly two feet tall and weighing in at just under 30 pounds, the Cooler Master HAF 932 High Air Flow Chassis is an imposing full tower ATX case, marketed towards gamers and overclockers with an array of fans, cooling options, and lots of space for large components. Every possible surface that could be covered with a fan has a grating on it, and you'll find three 230mm fans installed in the front, top and side panel as defaults, along with a spare 140mm in the back to boot.

Coolermaster V8 CPU Cooler @ Pro-Clockers
I am a fanboy of American automobiles especially the old school ones like the Mustangs, Chevells, Novas and many others. And one of the reasons I am so into these cars is because of the big blocks ( V8 for the unknowing) that these cars all had. Pure muscle is where it is all at. And the Coolermaster V8 takes its name from just these types of cars. The V8 is 865g of copper and aluminum so you can say this one is a big block. Today we will see if the Coolermaster V8 can perform like the cars did back in the 60s and 70s.

EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews
If you are a DDR3 aficionado or need a fantastic SLI platform then the EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM would be a great choice. Just keep in mind the upcoming Core i7 launch. Intel Core 2 processors will still be very competitive, but those of you making a large purchase versus simply a motherboard upgrade may wish to hold off. The EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM is a fantastic board that may simply be overshadowed by the death of LGA775.

G.Skill FS-25S2-64GB 2.5" Solid State Disk Drive @ Tweaktown
G.Skill is known for their high performance enthusiast memory, but like many "memory" companies, when RAM became unprofitable they looked to broaden their product lines. One area that many of these companies made a straight line for was expanding their flash memory products. This eventually led to solid state drives and ultimately caused the price of these drives to start to fall rapidly. Today we are looking at the G.Skill 64GB SLC drive. The drive is a rebadged Samsung drive like the four we reviewed in various levels of RAID back in June for DVNation.com. The difference between then and now is that the G.Skill 64GB drive cost just a little more than the 32GB model did when that article was written.

Gigabyte GA EP45 DQ6 Motherboard @ TechwareLabs
Behind every amazing computer, there is an amazing motherboard. Today, RTM takes Gigabytes GA-EP45-DQ6 for a spin. Competing with such boards as the ASUS Striker II, we have high hopes for this energy efficient little devil. Now we are left wondering: Can this board out perform the competition?

ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI Video Card Kit @ Legit Reviews
The ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hyrda SLI kit is a very innovative product that brings together SLI and water cooling very nicely. The bundle comes complete with everything you need to get started and that is very important for a kit of this size. Coming with the full version of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 video game is a nice touch as it is a $20-$30 game and not too many graphics cards come with games any longer. Installation was so simple the directions didn't even need to be used, so this kit will get you into water cooled graphics cards setup with SLI in minutes.

AMD Radeon HD 4830: Affordable Performance And Heavy Competition @ Anandtech
Based on the information we know about the GPU, the 4830 is clearly just an RV770 with one SIMD disabled. While AMD does have safeguards built into their GPUs to help improve yield, nothing is perfect. There will be ICs that come off the line that simply can't function properly at the desired speed or with all the hardware enabled to make it onto a higher end card. Chip makers will save these parts and bin them for possible use in lower end products later. We also sometimes see higher end binned chips released as special editions overclocked models, so it does work both ways. The price of the 4830 means that it will see higher volume sales than either the 4850 or the 4870. That's just how it works: more people buy cheaper parts. The interesting twist here is that the RV770 is being used in 3 different parts ranging from $130 to $300 with very little time lapse between the initial release and the current situation.

AMD's Radeon HD 4830 Graphics Processor @ Tech Report
Yep, this new card is indeed called the Radeon HD 4830. The name tells you almost everything you need to know about this product, which would appear to be the last piece of AMD's 4000-series Radeon lineup to fall into place. Those of you who read our recent review of affordable graphics cards may recall that AMD didn't have much to offer between the (sensational for its price) Radeon HD 4670 at 80 bucks and the all-world Radeon HD 4850 at about $180. Well, that's where the 4830 comes in. This new model is, like the 4850 and 4870, based on RV770 silicon, but in its tamest form yet. Yes, folks, the great product segmentation game continues with yet another chip having perfectly good—or possibly totally flawed—bits and pieces deactivated to maintain a neat separation between models. On the 4830, two of the RV770's 10 SIMD units have been disabled, reducing shader power (and likely performance) somewhat. Since those SIMD units are tied to texture management units, the GPU's TMU count has dropped proportionately. The end result: the Radeon HD 4830 has a total of 128 shader execution units—or 640 stream processors, in AMD parlance—and can filter up to 32 textures per clock.

Intel Montevina - Centrino 2 Portable Platform @ InsideHW
Almost five years ago, Intel promoted its first uniform solution attended for notebooks, under the brand – Centrino. This brand was launched with intention to consolidate a position of Intel on notebook’s market as number one. Many people are making a mistake if they think that Centrino is some Intel processor attended for notebooks and is based on “rocket science” technology. Centrino consolidates processor, chipset, integrated GPU (graphic processor), network subsystem that supports 100Mbit/1Gbit LAN connection and also an optional WiFi adapter.

Tagan Black Pearl WCR Full Tower Chassis @ Tweaktown
Enter the Tagan Black Pearl WCR. The "WCR" moniker is an acronym for "Water Cooling Ready", so it is designed for enthusiasts who need the flexibility to run unconventional cooling solutions. But can the PSU Dudes pull off a quality enclosure? Go ahead and take a load off as we delve into this very issue. After all, when it comes to spending our hard-earned dollars, it is important to see if we are getting what we really need.

Foxconn X58 Renaissance Motherboard @ TechARP
With all the talk going around about Intel's upcoming Bloomfield desktop processor, many enthusiasts are anxious to know more about the next-generation Intel processors which are slated to be launched in Q4 of 2008. It appears that motherboard companies like Foxconn have already started preparing for the launch. We were able to obtain some details of the upcoming Foxconn X58 Renaissance motherboard.

Silverstone Decathlon DA850 @ Pro-Clockers
Today I'm reviewing the Silverstone. I respect Silverstone. Their products are attractive and perform well, but I'm not going to take it easy on the DA850. For this PSU to garner a good review from me, it will have to stay stable while providing power to all my hardware.

MSI P45 Platinum and Asus Maximus II Formula @ Madshrimps
Of course, we'll be focusing on what both the MSI P45 Platinum and Asus Maximus II Formula can bring us in terms of performance, overclocking and the performance gained from overclocking. We'll be giving you basic pointers for better results and will spend a little time on the energy-saving technology of both MSI and Asus. But first, we'll start with the pictures to find out what we'll be dealing with.

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS Hard Drive @ Futurelooks
Fast forward to April 2008, when the fourth generation Raptor is announced. Titled the VelociRaptor, this new drive increases its maximum capacity to 300GB using two 150GB platters, reduces its form factor from 3.5″ to 2.5″, and includes a 3.5″ mounting bracket that doubles as a massive heatsink. Western Digital bills it as an “enterprise-class” drive, and claims it’s 35% faster than any previous generation of Raptor. We’ll have to see about that, but first let’s take a quick look at the specs.

Gigabyte EP45-DQ6 Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers
From the very beginning many of us could have figured the P45 chipset was going to be the chipset of chance as it is price considerably cheaper than the older X38 and the X48. And from the early reviews the P45 overclockers pretty well. We have seen able forum post and web reviews with front side buses reaching the 600MHz range on Core2Duo processors. But for the non-overclockers out there another advantage over the older P35 is the two 8x PCIe slots when attempting to using ATI video cards in Crossfire mode. Today, we will take the EP45-DQ6 through a ring of benchmarks and see what type of FSB numbers we can achieve.

Force3D ATI HD 4870 @ InsideHW
Radeon HD4800 series of graphics cards is real refreshment in these days. Every new generation of GPU brought a big shift in performances and ATi this time showed us that top model graphics chip (RV770) doesn’t have to be expensive. Based on experience from previous HD3850 and HD3870 models, we expected that new model HD4870 will dominate in middle-high class, with lower price and higher performances than other competitors. But, we were wrong… Tests showed something quite unexpected. Still, before benchmark results let’s see what new GPU offers.

@ Tech Report
Although the Hynix chips on our engineering sample are rated for up to 4Gbps operation, on this board, they run at the same 900MHz base clock and 3600MT/s data rate as on the Radeon HD 4870. That ain't exactly shabby, though. All told, the R700 has an aggregate 512-bit path to memory that theoretically peaks at 230GB/s. To put that into perspective, its likely closest competitor, the GeForce GTX 280, has "only" 142GB/s of peak memory bandwidth. With that in mind, the big question about the 4870 X2 is: How does it perform? If you've answered "About like two Radeon HD 4870s in a CrossFire setup," you're on the right track. Compared to a dual-card config, this puppy has the potential benefit of a faster CrossFire interconnect between the GPUs and twice the effective memory size (single 4870s currently have 512MB), but it has the possible disadvantage of those GPUs having to share PCI Express bandwidth to the rest of the system via that PLX switch. Which, of course, is why we test these things....

@ Anandtech
The "Scalable design" block we already know about, that's RV770 - we reviewed it last month. The 150W TDP $300 part is the Radeon HD 4870, and the 110W $200 part is the Radeon HD 4850, the two cards that have caused NVIDIA quite a bit of pain already. The smaller $100 part has a name, and a release date, neither of which we can talk about at this point, but it's coming. Today however, is about the 250W, $500 multi-GPU solution - internally known as R700. Hot on the heels of the Radeon HD 4800 series launch, AMD shipped out ten R700 cards worldwide, attempting to capitalize on the success of the 4800 and showcase the strength of AMD's small-GPU strategy. We're assuming that AMD will call the R700 based cards the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and based on the chart above we're expecting them to retail above $500 (possibly $549?). Today's article is merely a preview as R700s won't be officially launched for at least another month, but AMD wanted to unveil a bit of what it's cooking.

@ HEXUS
There is nothing intrinsically clever about what ATI is doing here. Much in the vein of the also-twin-GPU Radeon HD 3870 X2, the new card positions two of its fastest-clocked single-GPUs - HD 4870s - on to one card. The difference here is that the HD 4870 X2's frequencies are exactly the same speed as the regular cards', running at 750MHz core and shaders and 3,600MHz for the smokin' GDDR5 memory. Each of the card's twin GPUs has access to its own 512MiB frame-buffer, of course, and both are connected via a PCIe 2.0 conduit that's mounted on to the PCB. The card-based numbers are extraordinary; 2.4TFLOPS of math calculation; 60Gtexels/s of bilinear filtering; and 230GiB/s of combined memory bandwidth - comfortably higher than any card that's come before. It would not be unreasonable to assume that performance will be very much akin to two discrete Radeon HD 4870 boards placed in two-way CrossFire.

@ PC Perspective
Not too long ago the idea of a multi-GPU graphics card seemed taboo and brought about a lot of negative connotations with it. The GeForce 7950 GX2 was the first in the modern NVIDIA/ATI era and some board partners went in other multi-GPU directions until the Radeon HD 3870 X2 was released. We took the 3870 X2 as an answer to NVIDIA's high end cards because the company didn't have a single GPU that could compete with the competitions parts on its own; something of "we need answer" product. Today's preview of the HD 4870 X2 card from AMD proves that this time AMD was planning ahead. Our review of the RV770-based Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 cards showed the new GPU architecture to be very potent indeed and NVIDIA is very scared of what the dual-GPU version, known as R700 previously, would do to its line of cards. Today we were allowed to post a short "preview" of the card's performance and I have to say you will likely be impressed. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 card is AMD's answer to NVIDIA's flagship GTX 280 card in terms of pricing and placement. Even though NVIDIA recently dropped a bomb and lowered the price of the GTX 280 from $649 to $499, the estimated pricing we have seen for AMD's card is in the ">$500" range and will likely fall on the lower end of that open-ended range now. Isn't competition a wonderful thing?

@ Legit Reviews
Only four short months ago AMD launched the Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card and it was the flagship ATI Radeon product. ATI took two RV670 cores (Radeon HD 3870) and put them on the same PCB with the same amount of memory with the bridge chip already on the video card that enabled CrossFire automatically. The result was a graphics card that has two RV670 cores with 1GB of GDDR3 memory at a price point of $449. A Radeon HD 3870 X2 can now be found for just $289 and still packs some serious performance in a single graphics card. Now, the successor to the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is here with twice the gaming performance of the last generation. AMD has once again taken two of the latest cores (RV770) and placed them on a single PCB. AMD kept the clock frequencies the same as the Radeon HD 4870 graphics card, so basically you have the power of a pair of those running CrossFire on a single PCB! Our review of the HIS Radeon HD 4870 showed it to be a performance winner at a very nice price point. AMD has once again created a price versus performance winner and they have produced a product that has NVIDIA worried as they don't have a card that competes at the same price point. The GeForce GTX 280 is the only card that stands a chance to the Radeon HD 4870 X2!

@ HardOCP
So what is the Radeon HD 4870 X2, or better known internally as R700? The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is AMD’s single video card solution for the high-end gaming enthusiast crowd. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is poised to compete directly with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 280 at a competitive price. Final pricing and specifications will be finalized at launch later this summer. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is simply a video card with two Radeon HD 4870 GPUs on a single board. Therefore each GPU is operating in a “CrossFire” type of configuration, but hard wired on the board itself with a bridge chip. The new Radeon HD 4870 X2 uses a newer bridge chip that supports PCIe 2.0 and AMD has also improved the bandwidth between the GPUs. The bandwidth between both GPUs has been bumped from 6GB/sec, as found on the Radeon HD 3870 X2, to 20GB/sec on the Radeon HD 4870 X2. AMD has also beefed up the RAM on the Radeon HD 4870 X2; our samples have 1GB of GDDR5 accessible to each GPU (so 2GB total on the board.) Now, this memory is still not completely shared, the framebuffer is still duplicated and the memory is not combined. However, due to some inherent evolutionary upgrades present in GDDR5 memory modules there is actually a method in place to share some data between modules using that 20GB/sec bus. All of these improvements are evolutionary, through the memory, and the bridge chip, and should help improve performance and consistency with the Radeon HD 4870 X2 since it is a dual-GPU solution.

OCZ Rally2 32Gb USB Stick Review @ Madshrimps
We are testing the largest USB drive in such a compact form today. Packing 32Gb this OCZ Rally2 promises high performance and high capacity. It comes in classy black with fancy activity LED and carrying strap.

ECS P43T Socket 775 Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers
If you take a budget chipset and mix it with a company like ECS you will get an incredible priced motherboard. In this case you will get the P43T-A2. The P43A is ECS’s first P43 motherboard on the market. Even with all its short comings compared to the P45 this board offers the everyday Joe with everything they would need to build a stable and very complete system.

Super Talent Pico-C 8GB Flash Drive @ Tweaktown
Over the next thirty days I will have only one thing on my mind; USB thumb drives. Thumb drives started out as small devices that were a little pricey, offered a small amount of storage and had very low transfer rates. Even with limited space and transfer rates that felt like we took a step back to 1.44 MB floppy disk days, people quickly adopted the technology based on their ease of use and convenience. TweakTown is working on gathering as many USB thumb drives as possible for a massive round-up review that will put products from every major manufacturer in the ring with one another. Some drives stand out for their high transfer rates, while others have high capacity. Other drives use a very small enclosures; about the size of your thumbnail.

Thermalright IFX-14 CPU and Back-side Heatpipe Cooler Review @ Bigbruin
The Thermalright IFX-14 uses eight heatpipes to move heat from the base plate to the cooling fins, and these pipes are larger and more numerous than on many of the other big coolers on the market. Overall it is larger than any other cooler I have had a chance to use, including some titans like the Tuniq Tower 120 and Zalman CNPS 9700, which we will see compared side-by-side in this review.

Gigabyte EX38-DQ6 Motherboard Review @ Club Overclocker
The X38 chipset isn't the latest/greatest, but Gigabyte has invested in this chipset and even positioned it in their Performance and Energy Saving lineup. As we take a closer look at this board, you'll see that this board offers folks looking to upgrade a great platform to build upon. By utilizing DDR2, Gigabyte is keeping your cost lower by letting you recycle your existing RAM and avoid the inflated cost of DDR3.

OCZ Vendetta 2 Heatpipe Cooler @ Pro-Clockers
Now we have at our doorstep the Vendetta Dos ok the Vendetta 2. This new and improved Vendetta is bigger and sports a larger cooling fan. Naturally, we would think that a larger version of a similar cooler would deem better temps and higher overclocks. Well we are here today to see if the theory correct.

MSI Wind U100 @ InsideHW
While exterior has a lot of similarities, platforms on which are based Wind and Eee represent two different worlds. Eee uses old technology which became cheap enough over time. On the other hand, Wind has newest Intel processor, made especially for these types of devices. That CPU is Atom N270. Beside small dimensions (which enables even smaller dimensions of device), Atom characterizes extremely small power consumption. Thanks to that, it is possible to use passive cooling solution which results in much bigger autonomy. Atom is manufactured in 45nm process with total surface area that is only 22mm2. Under full load dissipations amounts incredible 2.5W and if it’s in idle, dissipations are less than 1W. Atom N270 works at 1.6GHz which makes it able to respond on every task that can be expected from one ultra portable computer. As their main purpose is attached to Internet, a new name is already born - Netbook . If we look at their outstanding performances, we shouldn’t be surprised with great demands for Atom processors on the market. This is the main reason why shortage appeared in first place. We should expect that this sort of problem will exist in next few months.

Cooler Master Real Power Pro 550W Power Supply @ TechwareLabs
The box which the Cooler Master 550W “Real Power” Power supply comes in is the Cooler Master standard white, black and trimmer in purple and stamped with the products features on the sides and back of the box. Inside, the power supply secured tightly in foam to prevent shifting and damage during shipping. The front of the box is stamped with a few important facts such as a 5 year warranty which is very important to those PC users out there who want a power supply that backed by a warranty which will last the life most the components, essentially giving the user the most time for their hard earned dollar. The box is also stamped with the icon 80 Plus, which means the 550W PSU is an 80+% efficient PSU under normal loads. This efficiency is note-worthy to everyone concern about conserving energy and having the least amount of heat being produced due to load demands of the rig.