Apple?s iPod is nothing compared to what some of the other companies are introducing to the market. Although iPod holds significant market share, Apple would sooner or later become just another MP3 player maker. Yet another contender to the hard drive based MP3 players is Creative and its Zen Sleek.

Wondering which Athlon 64 CPU runs best with NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX GPU? In this article, we've gathered processors ranging from the 1.8GHz "Venice" Athlon 64 3000+, all the way up to AMD's latest Athlon 64 FX-57 CPU. We've also included the GeForce 6800 GT for comparison. See which processor(s) deliver the most bang for your buck, as well as which clock speeds you may want to shoot for when overclocking inside!

VR-Zone came to know that the future is actually pretty near where NVIDIA G80 design is based on unified shader architecture slated to appear in 2006. ATI has already taken the unified approach for their R500 Xenon within the XBox 360 and has 48 unified pipelines.As we know, in an unified shader architecture, there are no dedicated vertex and pixel shader engines but unified shader engine capable of executing both types of instructions.

Looking for a GeForce 6600 board for your SLI setup? Or maybe you just want a good mainstream card with Shader Model 3.0 support? NVIDIA has taken the by storm with their GeForce 6600 cards, available in AGP and PCI Express flavours. But if you're looking to get some SLI action, PCI Express is the only way to go! We test four cards in this round up: the ASUS EN6600 GT TD 128, the Chaintech SE6600G 128, the Gigabyte 6600GT and the MSI NX6600 VTD128R.

This week, we were very lucky to get our hands on a CrossFire motherboard and a CrossFire master card from Gigabyte

We're currently running two competitions at HEXUS, the first is a modding and slogan competition in which you can win lots of goodies from Ultra, including cases and modular PSUs. The second is a simple question, which if you answer quick enough will secure you an Amacrox Rubber Suspension Kit for keeping your system that little bit quieter. More details can be found in our competition forum.

ATI's CrossFire multi-GPU technology may work with motherboards based on Intel's 955X chipset when compatible graphics cards ship next month.

The Register

We have a few first-hand shots of the new Alienware Star Wars system - the Force is strong with this one... even if it is the Dark Side version.

Bit-Tech

Vr-Zone recently hosted a story about Nvidia having a secret weapon codenamed the G71 to fight ATI's impending R520.

Those wanting an affordable, all round great card with good shader performance will likely be pleased with the Radeon X700 Pro series. Even with the lack of AGP support and the absence of its premium part (the elusive Radeon X700 XT), Radeon X700 Pro continues to be one of the preferred choice for many gamers. Today, we test boards from three different manufacturers. In alphabetical order they are the ASUS Extreme AX700 Pro 256 MB, Gigabyte X700 Pro 256 MB and the MSI RX700 Pro TD128E.

Alienware presents us Intel-based Area-51 3500 systems and AMD-based Aurora 3500 systems with new sleek mid-tower cases. The company equipped the cases with acoustic dampening features to eliminate annoying noises and also incorporated convenient front-accessible microphone, headphones, FireWire and USB ports. Another feature is the large front grill that allows extra airflow. More details and images Click Here

Thanks to VR-Zone for the Heads Up!

Our friends at HKEPC has landed themselves with a Radeon X800GT reference card. It is based on R430 core, 8 pipes, 395Mhz core, 700MHz GDDR1/3 memory. It will be announced next Monday on 25th July and will be priced at US$149. HIS will be producing this card exclusively at the initially stage and will take their own cooling design. Sapphire and PowerColor will be producing at a later stage.

We've been able to secure some early performance numbers and picture on NVIDIA's pending 7800GT card which is said to debut at this year's QuakeCon.

Core Center, MSI's Temperature Monitoring program is interfering with SoundBlaster Live! series of sound cards and on board integrated SB Live! audio solutions like MSI K8N SLI Platinum boards.

Sony Electronics is a name known for consumer electronics products. Not surprisingly, the company has introduced a latest line of sleek MP3 players based on flash memory for portability and ruggedness. As you can already tell, the exterior of the player is like no other with a small, glossy finish for an attractive look. According to Sony, it?s about the size of a gum, which makes it pretty small.

The latest releases from many major manufacturers has created a pressing demand for a comparison in which CDRinfo has gathered the eight best recently reviewed drives. Over the following pages, we will be comparing some of their primary characteristics such as transfer rate, error correction, ripping speed, as well as writing quality and writing times.

Just like MP3 players are the latest buzz in the consumer electronics industry, cordless keyboard and mice are the latest talk in the peripherals market. Logitech, a company known for its innovation and a solid product line, at least most of the time, has come through with yet another mouse that may interest you. Logitech?s MediaPlay Cordless mouse may appear like a regular mouse, but it?s definitely not anything you?ve ever seen before.

There?s no doubt that Apple?s iPod product line has been garnering a lot of attention ever since the first iPod was launched back in 2002. Since then, Apple has managed to push its iPod line to a point where it?s more like a cultural accessory in addition to the traditional consumer electronics device. In fact, Apple?s iPod is the world?s most popular portable audio player with as much as 80 percent of the market share.

Like expected Intel today launched two new Intel Itanium 2 processors with a faster FSB. For the first time, Itanium 2 processors have a 667MHz FSB, which connects and transfers data between the microprocessor, chipset and system's main memory. Servers designed to utilize the new bus are expected to deliver more than 65 percent greater system bandwidth over servers designed with current Itanium 2 processors with a 400 MHz FSB. This new capability will help set the stage for the forthcoming dual core Itanium processor, codenamed "Montecito," which will feature the same bus architecture. More at DV Hardware

SLI Multi-GPU technology gained the world's attention, breaking every performance record one by one. Seeing this success, ATI secretly began working on a new Multi-GPU architecture, which is known as Crossfire. Now, the time has come for the two Multi-GPU standards to show their teeth.

CDRInfo