Happy hunkering down to anyone else here
on the eastern seaboard of the US. I think I have every outlet
taken up now charging flashlights, phones, the kid's DSs as we get ready
for the two hurricanes
coming up the coast. Hanna looks to be the first pitch with Ike
bearing down behind. Let's check the news before I go gas up the
generator.
The weekend news begins with
AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 and an in depth review of it at the
Hard|OCP.
The Radeon HD
4870 X2 is here in final form, sporting a new BIOS and brand new
drivers, this video card is poised to take the performance crown. We
will evaluate real-world gameplay experiences in Crysis, Age of Conan,
Call of Duty 4 and Grid concentrating on high-resolution gaming with AA
and providing A2A tests.
If you have any doubts about your power
supply being up to snuff for that high power video card, here's an add
in option.
Thermaltake's ToughPower Power Express VGA 650w PSU is a 5.25" bay
mounted unit to act as a secondary power supply.
Techware Labs
has more.
The Thermaltake
Power Express 650W VGA Power Supply turned out to be a superb product.
The sleek and stylish exterior will look great in nearly every case.
Although, if your case has a solid door on the front, then the
ventilation might become a problem. With a very acceptable voltage
output, this power supply will not only last a long time but will help
even make your components last longer because of not suppling too much
or little voltage to the device.
I'm a big fan of the Inno3D iChill
series (no pun intended.)
Hexus looks at the
latest in the line with this view of the
Inno3D GeForce iChiLL 9800 GT.
Inno3D's GeForce
9800 GT iChiLL Twin Turbo certainly builds on the potential of the 9800
GT reference design, mainly by adding a very effective uprated cooler
and pre-overclocking the card. The combination adds around 10 per cent
extra performance when compared to a stock-clocked card.
Back in the day, I still remember
picking up my first high performance VGA card. It was a S3 with an
astounding full megabyte of onboard RAM. S3 is back at
TechPowerUp
with their
S3 Graphics Chrome 440 GTX.
Two Chrome 400
products are available at this time: the Chrome 430 GT and the faster
Chrome 440 GTX. Both use the same 65 nm graphics chip, but the 440 GTX
uses GDDR3 and higher clocks. Both cards are targeted at the entry-level
segment, with possible uses in office systems or Home Theater PCs. Even
though gaming is supported, don't expect anything beyond basic
resolutions at medium detail settings.
The dual question expands with dual
HD3850s on a single PCB.
Virtual-Hideout
goes on a date with the twins of the
ASUS EAH3850 X2 1GB.
The question
was, "To dual with single GPU's or dual GPU's." Personally, if you
wanted a Crossfire setup, I would suggest choosing the ASUS EAH3850 X2
single card over a two card setup, just for the sheer fact that the
bridging has already been done onboard. Plus, with these cards being
almost on the budget level of pricing, you can go quad inexpensively.
Mice or mices?
Razer
Goliathus Speed Edition Mouse Pad at Bjorn3D.
NZXT Avatar Crafted Series Gaming Mouse at Overclocker's Club.
NZXT Avatar Crafted Series Gaming Mouse at Tweaktown.
Keyboards?
WolfKing Timber Wolf Gaming Keyboard at Benchmark Reviews.
Logitech Wave Keyboard at Mod Reactor.
You never know when you may need that thumb drive to low
visibility.
ATP 4GB ToughDrive Camo action posted at
BCC Hardware.
The finish of the drive is
certainly rugged in terms of protecting your data. I've dropped this
several times, soaked it in a glass or water and even left it in my
pockets through a wash and dry cycle. The drive still functions fine.
The SIP idea is really what keeps this protected from water, but the
rubber case doesn't hurt either.
Zalman makes some of the most efficient and sharp
looking coolers on the market. Take the new
Zalman CNPS9300AT Cooler for instance that
Frostytech has
on their bench.
The CNPS9300AT is constructed from
many 0.2mm thin copper fins strung together around two copper heatpipes
that are formed into a figure-8 shape. The upper half of the heatsink
cradles the fan, the bottom mounts to the processor. It's an elegant
thermal solution, and well finished.
ASUS ENGTX260 TOP GeForce GTX 260 action for the masses. See
Tech ARP for more.
As one of NVIDIA's biggest retail
partner, ASUS has no less than six different GTX 260 models. They
consist of three versions, each available with or without HDMI support.
The three major versions are the basic ENGTX260, the ENGTX260/G game
bundle kit and the top-of-the-line ENGTX260 TOP overclocked edition. The
card we are reviewing is the ASUS ENGTX260 TOP, specifically the
non-HDMI version.
Four-Way SSD Round-Up, OCZ, Super Talent, Mtron over at
Hot Hardware
today.
Motherboards.org holds true to their name and reviews one of the
many Gigabyte boards out today, the
Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H motherboard.
Yes this is the fastest integrated
graphics on the market period. Yes, it features the new SB750
Southbridge which adds RAID 5 functionality to the chipset, and yes, the
chipset supports CrossfireX in 2 x8 modes. The problem becomes what is
it competing against at the $150 price point? The 780G chipset offers
many of the same features besides ACC as the new GX one does, but it has
a lower clock speed.
There are case paint jobs and then there are Case Paint
Jobs!
Nordic Hardware shows you the difference with a posting of
Smooth Creations' Trek 08 which is in fact a ready to roll rig.
When I
inquired about the cost of the system, I was pleasantly surprised to
find a $3,100 US price tag; honestly, I was expecting considerably
higher. One can never easily put a simple price on art, and this system
is no exception, but the performance provided in this system offers
surprisingly good value for your hard-earned dollar. It appears that
Smooth Creations has managed to carve into a potentially lucrative
market segment that offers a boutique build at a very reasonable price.
