As everyone knows, Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the largest technology tradeshow in the IT Industry. CES is the place to be for information on next generation of digital products and future IT pipeline. We had the opportunity to visit the show this year and gathered quite a bit of industry insider information directly from companies and outside sources.

The chinese website HKEPC have snagged some details and slides of Intel's Pentium 4 660 series which could support EM64T!

HotHardware have snagged some photos of eVGA nForce5 SLI motherboard!

That's right people you're looking at dual PCI Express slots in a standard desktop board and we were told in a private session that these slots specifically support a dual X16 lane graphics configuration. We weren't able to pull the heatsink off the Northbridge but we are fairly certain (and it was noted to us by rep we met with) that this is an nForce based motherboards in pre-production status. The Southbridge looks to be an Intel ICH6 but we can't be too sure since it has engineering brandings on it. Regardless we thought you'd like to take a look at this up close and personal. nForce 5 for the P4 with SLI (if that is in fact what this board is) looks to be right around the corner!

As of next week, we will have a new mobile CPU in our midst, "Turion" codenamed. The processor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) is targeted to go head on with Intel's very popular Centrino Technology.

Everythingusb reports Perhaps the most versatile external device ever introduced, Creative's new USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor is first a THX-certified external sound card that delivers 24-bit Advanced HD in 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 surround sound with EAX, Dolby Digital DX and DTS-ES support.

Several benchmark results from five different ATI X800XT Platinum Editions

Graphics cards:

If you remember Intel warned us about the fact that you might brake the pins of your socket T motherboard if you remove and insert the CPU many times. Actually the motherboard that we managed to "damage" in our case (Albatron PX915G Pro) had more than 30 changes of the CPU so far. Some time ago we performed a test where we inserted and removed a P4 LGA-775 CPU into the socket (without the cooler) 100 times and there were no problems witht he pins, so we can conclude that the aditional force that the BOX socket T cooler applies is probably the cause for breaking the pin of the socket. See the pictures of the broken pin here

Got my rig up and running last night, thing are running flawless for the most part. It's definetely much easier to setup than I originally thought. The only problem I had was getting NBA Live 2005 to work, does not seem to be compatible at this time with SLI, but no worries, I'm sure a driver update will take care of that.

Still saving up your lunch money for a PCI Express graphics card? Salivating in anticipation for Nvidia 6600 series graphics card benchmark numbers? Or just bored enough to read part II of [M]'s PCI Express Graphics card comparison? No matter, Madshrimps got you covered here as they added an Albatron 6600 and a XFX 6600GT to the mix, stirred the pot, and came up with some interesting numbers that just may change your opinion of mainstream PCI Express graphics cards.

Both ATi and nVidia have had issues supplying their top of the range cards to retail channels over the past few months, the most notable example being ATi's X800 XT. However, ATi have been shuffling their products around a bit recently, and now we have a new kid on the block: the X800 XL. Undercutting nVidia's 6800 GT by around $100, it could quickly become an extremly popular card. Hexus.net have a preview.

Apple has begun to ship their Xsan product. The Xsan is a high performance, enterprise SAN (Storage Area Network) file system. The unit is priced at $999 per client and per server.

Datafuse.net

Looking to cool that small nuclear reactor Intel has sold you in the Prescott P4. The Madshrimps have for you today 6 samples of aftermarket LGA775 coolers that might just let you squeak a little more MHz out of your CPU, or at the very least allow the CPU to run just a bit cooler

HardwareOC have snagged the latest Roadmap for S3 Graphics with details of a coupled multi-board card aka SLI with DirectX 10.

2004 was a great year for PC hardware and technology ? we found ourselves drenched in performance goodness, the likes of which we haven?t seen in awhile because of the magnitude of performance gains are incredible. Additionally, we also have been blessed with games that can truly take advantage of the hardware and are breaking new ground in graphical detail. Doom 3, Half-Life 2 and Far Cry are among a few of the most notable games that have an uncanny ability to push today?s PC hardware to its limits. Here?s a look at our ?Best of 2004? picks:

Researchers from the Next Generation Crypto team at Sun Microsystems Laboratories have created the world's smallest secure web server. Nicknamed Sizzle (from SSSL for Slim SSL), this server is the size of a U.S. twenty-five cent coin and is designed to be embedded in a wide array of tiny devices (home appliances, light fixtures, utility meters, sprinkler systems, personal medical devices, temperature and pressure sensors) for secure monitoring and control across the Internet.

For the third year running, OCWorkbench has been running the Readers Awards, and 2004 has been a very interesting year indeed. In year 2004, we have done up more reviews than before. With the inclusion of our mobile forums and reviews, we have attracted more readers worldwide. This year, we see a lot of new innovations and products which generated a lot of interest among readers. In the article, we share and analyse some of the results of the polls by our readers.

4? x 6? printer roundup, what are the Canon Selphy DS700, Epson pictureMate, Kodak Printer Dock Plus, HP Photosmart 325, Olympus P10, performances compared to the R300 and photo lab prints.

Behardware

Hexus.net have a roundup of products from Gainward's Hollywood@Home range. Most will be familiar with Gainward's graphics cards, but they also have a collection of multimedia products, from TV-capture cards to 5.1 headphones (which can apparantly be rather immersive.)

About four years ago, Microsoft's Research and Development team came up with a new technology called Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT) that uses FM radio signals to broadcast news, weather and other information to wristwatches. The first Smart Watches leveraging SPOT were first launched last January at the Consumer Electronics Show however it did take them a few extra months to get the wireless service running with all its features and have wristwatches available more widely.

Dreamnid.com has an in-depth review and round-up of all the high-end speakers. Although the Klipsch and the GigaWorks perfrom quite good, under the GigaWorks section the reviewer seems to prefer the GigaWorks: " To me the S750 is of beter overall quality and would be my choice if I had to have only one PeaSee speaker system." The reviewer seems to think that the Logitech is in a different, lower class.