Wow, it's been a long time since I've been able to bring you the latest and greatest in Hardware News.  Let's hop in and see what I've missed

Bit Tech kicks things off this morning with a look at the ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard.

Asus' power saving, while all encompassing and quite fancy on the surface, generally doesn't work as efficiently as MSI's DrMOS and GreenPower, which keep things simpler and allows some degree of overclocking too. For the most part, its list of features feel a bit like basic tickboxes although Asus' EPU² certainly does work to save some power.

Next up, Bjorn3d takes a closer look at the Intel X58 Smackover.  Is that the opposite of a smackdown?

The Smackover X58 motherboard definetly delivers the hype that surrounded it form the rumors we all have been hearing. This motherboard performed beyond my expectations. It also scaled extremely well during overclocking. The overall layout of this motherboard, I will have say, is good (besides the SATA connector placements). The placement of the EPS, 4-pin Molex, and the SATA power plugs were in a great place on the motherboard and would not interfere with other motherboard components, while at the same time allowing us a better way in reagrds to cable management.

Modders Inc shows off the NZXT Whisper.

Bottom line here, if your looking for a full tower case that has plenty of room and at the same time will help keep things rather quiet then your search is over. The NZXT Whisper is a silent monster of a case and it's ready for your huge system.

Think Computers has a go at the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB Video Card. 

So what's the big deal with the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe? COOLING!!! The cooling on the reference HD 4870 X2 left much to be desired. Honestly, load temps of over 90C are pretty scary. The highest load temp I saw with the Revolution 700 was a momentary 77C, all the rest of the time the temperature was 74C. An average drop of 25C on idle temp is just as impressive. And all this with the fans at a silent speed.
 

The SilverStone Fortress FT101 Mid Tower is getting some lovin today -- Hardware Canucks are taking a look.

Phoronix is having a go at the same case.

The SilverStone Fortress FT01 doesn't outdo the Temjin TJ10 if you're after an extended ATX enclosure, need a surplus of room, or require dedicated cooling for your graphics card(s), but if you're just looking for one hell of a well-designed and well-built desktop chassis, the Fortress FT01 rings that bell. The SilverStone Fortress FT01 looks superb (at least we think so) both on the interior and exterior, is about half the weight of the TJ10 and is smaller making it easier to transport, and has excellent cooling capabilities. The dust filters and foam used for noise dampening is an added bonus found on the FT01 that we hope will find its way to more SilverStone enclosures.

How about some free stuff!  Driver Heaven is giving away the coolest NIC I've ever seen.

Tweak Town takes the Intel Core i7 from Stock to Clocked.

All in all, we do see some impressive performance increases when we move to 3.8GHz, with some games showing better gains then others. With 3.8GHz being 100% stable for us, not only under games but also under prime, we’ve found the sweet spot for our new test system. So, with everything said and done, look forward to all our graphics card reviews from here on which use the setup we have here today.

The Elite Bastards are revisiting NVIDIA GPU PhysX.

Driver's Heaven is checking out the G.Skill Pi Black PC2-6400 4GB Memory Kit.

The G.Skill Pi Black PC2-6400 800MHz 4GB kit offers great value and performance at a reasonable price. It certainly isn't one of the fastest kits currently available but it overclocks quite well and should be a fine addition to any mainstream system. The new heatspreaders are not a ground-breaking discovery, but they are much better than the simple heatspreaders of the lower end models.

Good day one and all.  Let's jump right into the news this morning where we find that Overclocker's Club has one of the lesser known 4000 series Radeons on test bench.  The PowerColor HD 4830 looks to pack a bit of a punch for what it is.

I was not expecting this card to do that well. I mean the HD 4800 series are great cards but with what was disabled I had fears that it crippled a good card. Boy was I wrong. At stock this card even puts the HD 4850 in a battle for the race and bypasses even the 9800GT and the 8800GT cards which were considered great cards of their time.

They also show off the Thermaltake Spedo Advance Case.

Our friends at Viper Lair have a microATX board on deck in the MSI P6NGM Motherboard.

With the previous performance hurdles I was expecting a so so HTPC solution, in the end, I was wrong... The MSI P6NGM more then steps up to the challenge of being the base to which you build your Home Theater PC on. I plugged in the on-board HDMI into my Toshiba Regza 42HL67 (1080i / 720p) HDTV, while I am not pumping out 1080p video, I was still very impressed.

Rock'n Free Stuff!  (XFX GTX260 Black Edition)

Techgage asks if the ASUS Rampage II Extreme Motherboard is the best board ever made.

ASUS has long supported overclockers with their motherboards, but the Rampage II Extreme takes things to the next level. In addition to an even more robust BIOS than what we're used to, we're given the ability to put our multi-meters to good use with the help of easy-access board contacts. When all said and done though, is the RIIE really worth the $400 asking price?

ZOTAC NITRO Overclocking Tuner?

Overclocking a graphics card isn’t really a hard task. With programs like Rivatuner you can find yourself overclocking your core and memory within minutes of setting up your graphics card.

For this reason, it does make us wonder why ZOTAC would take the time and effort to release a device that lets you do it without having to use software. Really, there was only one way to find out; get one and take it for a spin to see exactly what we have going on here.

Techware Labs reviews the Razer Boomslang Collector's Edition 2007 Gaming Mouse today.  Collector's Edition?  Who collects mice?

For those new to the Boomslang feel, the original ball mouse took a few weeks to get used to it due to the location of the ball on the mouse versus most every other mouse around, but for those of you looking to acquire the Razer Boomslang™ CE 2007 rest assured the new mouse's optical sensor location make the transition into this serious gaming mouse an effortless one and one that will quickly grow on you, the avid gamer.

Still over at TWL is this review of Thermaltake's effort to put an Orb on everything (not a bad thing either).  Check out the Thermaltake RamORB.

More Free stuff!  (Three Sennhieser PC350 Gaming Headsets)

Heads up to anyone looking for a 4870x2 cooling option.  PureOC shows off the EK Water Block for the Radeon 4870x2.

The EK 4870 X2 is an amazing product. It is well crafted, well designed, the quality and attention to detail is impeccible, and the performance is nothing short of astounding. It is not cheap, but great water cooling products rarely are, and it's not far from the price range of competitors' products anyway. Quite honestly, the EK 4870 X2 will leave even the most diehard water cooling enthusiast smiling.

Hip name there.  Bjorn3D has a go with the ASUS 9800 GTX+ Dark Knight.

There are many good things that accompany the Asus 9800 GTX+ Dark Knight edition. It is the culmination of many high end features that are sure to help you play all of the latest titles at max without a hint of lag, and stay extrememly cool while doing it.

Revoltec Sixty 2 Case review (translated from its original German) over at Technic3D.

Next up we find the NZXT Guardian 921 Case as shown by the crew at XS Reviews.

The noise is a big problem and serves to annoy me regularly, for example when watching films, and it is the one major drawback to this case. if you discount the dust. That said though, if you can afford to run the fans at low speeds, or plan to replace them with quieter alternatives, the Guardian won't see you wrong in many other areas.

The man in the funny hat said what?

OCZ Platinum Edition PC3-16000 2GB Memory Kit at HardwareLogic.

Keysonic ACK-612 RF Wireless Multimedia Keyboard at Overclock3D.

Patriot Warp v2 128GB SATA-II SSD at Benchmark Reviews.