5.1 is now supported by most sound cards and integrated chipsets. We are now even witnessing the introduction of 7.1 sound. 6.1 or 7.1 sound users aren?t yet numerous, however, and the number of 7.1 speaker sets available in stores tells us it?s still a niche market. It is already difficult to install a 5.1 speaker set around your computer so you can imagine what installation would be like with an additional two satellites. So what is the best 5.1 speaker set on the market? Here is a summary of the latest Altec Lansing, Creative, Hercules and Logitech products to help you make your choice.

SpeedStep alleviates the heat problems of the fast P4 processors, while even faster models are on the horizon. At the same time, DDR2 memory is becoming reasonably affordable, and boards have now had 6 months to age. It's time for our big comparison test, which we kick off with a look at seven different models from companies challenging the market leaders.

Tom's Hardware Guide

From HEXUS.net: "Intel have started the production of their multi-core silicon. The first CPU which we will see from Intel is that of the Extreme Edition.

The CPU will support 2 physical cores and 4 'Hyperthreading' threads. We suspect that we will see the first live demo of this CPU at Intel Developer Forum, in San Francisco at the end of the month. This will probably tie in with a launch of a system from Dell, since Intel have already got a commitment from Dell in regards to supplying it."

Today at HWspirit we've put up one big article about nVidia's SLI technology with the sole purpouse to answer everyone's questions regarding this new technology:

A few of you will have indulged in SLI, much as I am going to shortly, and now you have four lovely DVI connectors to play with. If you've not gone for SLI, but you're wondering about the possibilities available with PCI Express and dual-card graphics, MSI might have the answer with their "Dual Bridge System".

Hexus.net

After posting my AMD Athlon64 vs. Sempron comparison last week I was still puzzled to why the overclocked Sempron 3100+ was able to easily out perform the Athlon64 3200+ in all the synthetic tests but not the real world tests. A large number of readers also thought this was quite strange, so I spent most of this week trying to find out why. The problem seemed to be the Gigabyte K8NSNXP motherboard which featured an out-dated BIOS version. While the board did detect the Sempron 3100+ processor, the board?s 3D performance when using the Sempron was for some unknown reason quite poor.

It has been 14 months since our last Performance PC article was published where we collected the best performing computer parts around and built up one of the quickest and most expensive systems of its time. Today we bring you our much anticipated follow-up taking a look at exactly what almost $5,000 USD worth of hardware gets you. Based around an AMD Athlon 64 system with SLI, we have oodles and oodles of performance to play with. Read on as we bring you our recommended Performance Computing system for Q1 2005

Yonah seems to be the hot topic of the moment, and the only problem I see is that people keep re-treading the same old information as before, usually pilfered from Intel roadmaps. Yippee, I am beside myself that there is yet another slew of stories saying that it will be out "later" at an undetermined clock speed.
That's not the information that the INQ has, and we feel it is our duty to set things straight. First, Intel has Yonahs listed as X20/30/40 and 50 at unlisted clocks. They are unlisted because Intel is not sure how well they are going to bin out yet. The target is 2.5GHz, but one speed bump up or down is entirely possible now, so if there is a 2.33GHz or 2.67GHz part at launch, don't be all that shocked. This would put the X50 at 2.5GHz optimally, X40 at 2.33, X30 at 2.17 and the lowly X20 at a mere 2.0GHz. In case you hadn't guessed by the numbers, the bus is 667MHz. Read on at TheInq

XGI will soon be announcing their native PCI Express chips, the first ones being the XG45 and the XG47.

GamePC have thrown up their NCQ-enabled SATA hard drives comparison! Here's a snip.

Throughout 2004, we?ve seen Serial ATA technology finally move into the mainstream and wallop Ultra ATA/133 technology into the ground. While the transition to Serial ATA has gone fairly smoothly, due to SATA controllers being integrated on every new motherboard and manufacturers charging almost no price difference between SATA and PATA based hard drives, we have seen one major feature of Serial ATA largely overlooked until lately, Native Command Queuing.

It's a familiar problem. Which model to buy? Should I go for the regular or should I pay a little bit extra and get the deluxe model? Well, it always depends on whether or not the higher price is worth the difference in features. Today we are going to evaluate both the Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Pro and the Microsoft Optical Desktop Elite for Bluetooth. The Bluetooth model is about $50.00 more expensive than the Pro,but is it worth it?

The key players in the processor industry being Intel and AMD, both offer cut down versions of their flagship products. For example the cut down version of the Intel Pentium4 processor is known as the Celeron. Currently the AMD equivalent is known as the Sempron and this processor is available in two different forms. The Sempron has been released for both the Socket A and 754-pin platforms. Often readers ask if they should purchase a 754-pin Athlon64 or Sempron and is the $50 US price premium worth it for the Athlon64 processor.

Intel's 915 and 925X Chipsets made their debut last June, bringing with them a whole raft of new technologies all at once. Since then, Intel has had the P4 chipset market nearly all to itself. VIA is aiming to change that with the introduction of three new chipsets for the Pentium 4 sporting a wealth of new features, including PCI Express, that should finally give VIA chipsets feature parity with Intel.

The fact that PCI Express standard is the future of computing industry and is moving forcefully towards its designated position in both high-end server/workstation and consumer end systems is not a secret. Therefore, it makes sense to move upcoming high-end components, such as GPUs and boards, in that direction.

According to AMD and Intel dual core CPUs will usher in a new era of computing. But will they really? We beg to differ, as quite a few things need to be in place first.

Hardware Analysis

For your chance to win an iRiver H10 digital audio player with a 5GB hard drive and a colour screen with the ability to play MP3 & WMA files, head over to TrustedReviews.

Digit-Life have thrown up their Hardware Digest 2004 for Desktop Hard Disk Drives , Sound Cards , Processors and their monthly 3D Digest.

Like in the year 2003, sound cards manufactured in 2004 could be divided into two categories: entertainment and professional.

Today TweakTown compare three of the latest nVidia based AGP and PCI Express graphics cards from Gigabyte. We look at the GeForce 6200 for the low-end market, the impressive value for money GeForce 6600GT with SLI support along with the high-end 6800GT AGP which offers great performance but not at the price of the very high-end models. Read on and work out which graphics card is best for your needs as we run them through our usual array of gaming benchmarks

NVIDIA is taking the wraps off some interesting new additions to its nForce Professional line of core logic products. NVIDIA trumpets these new nForce Professional chips as the industry's first PCI Express platform for Opteron processors, but there's much more to this scalable family of core logic products than just PCI-E.

TechReport

The multifunction market is changing. Prices are falling, printing rates rising and ink costs have gone down. In this test we put the Canon MP390, Epson RX425 / CX4600, HP PSC 1350 and Lexmark P6250 up against each other.Full story : click here.