Advanced Micro Devices is expected to announce a new dual-core, dual-processor platform later Thursday, in an attempt to roll over the competition in the enthusiast computing space.

ExtremeTech

Currently, the Intel D975XBX (Bad Axe 1) rev. 304 boards out there can support the upcoming Conroe and even the quad-core Kentsfield since the board is based on VRD11 design guideline and both processors work fine with VRD11. As for thermal envelope, Conroe is 65W and Kentsfield is 95W.

VR-Zone

Ready to do battle with the nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition and Intel 975X Express. According to documentation from ATI, RD600 looks like a monster. The board material claims the chipset can already support 1333MHz FSB with an expectation that it should reach 1500MHz FSB.

DailyTech

Intel announces the shipping clock speed for its Core 2 Extreme and the top Core 2 Duo CPUs. They also give a sneak peek into the roadmap and give us some hands-on benchmarking time.

We all knew that the upcoming 965 Broadwater boards will support Conroe and even the good old 865 board from Asrock with VRD11 design guideline can run Conroe. Now we have heard that at least one manufacturer will be revising their current 945 boards to support Conroe as well.

VR-Zone

AMD has introduced its new Live! entertainment and media center brand. AMD defines a Live! machine as a "full-featured, easy-to-use media center PC designed to enable consumers to organize, distribute, share, and enjoy their content collection throughout the home and on the go." To achieve this type of functionality, AMD Live! machines will ship with the Live! Entertainment Suite, which contains a number of apps designed to simplify home networking and local file sharing:

The u:734 features a 17? display with 1900x1200 resolution, Intel Core Duo microprocessor (your choice of T2400, T2500 and T2600), 2GB of DDR2 memory, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX graphics adapter, an 8x DVD Writer and up to 160GB of hard drive space. In addition, the u:734 is also packed with a 4-in-1 media reader, GbE, 802.11a/b/g wireless standards, Bluetooth capability and an integrated webcam.

Goodbye DDR400, hello DDR2-800! With the AM2, AMD wants to double memory bandwidth. What does the new Socket that unifies the Sempron and Athlon 64 platform bring in practice? Behardware.com has tested the Socket AM2 with 50 different configurations and the least we can say is that the picture isn?t that pretty?

Socket AM2, DDR2 according to AMD

Yesterday, we mentioned a thread in which someone was getting up to about 3.5GHz using high-end air.

Intel's 2006 Mobile CPU Roadmap adds another socket to the lineup, 800MHz FSB notebook processors and much more... while Intel's 2006 Desktop CPU Roadmap promises significant price cuts across the board in preperation for dual-core ramp.

PC World reports that Dell has posted a fix for the banding problems affecting some of its wide-screen 20.1" 2007WFP monitors. The banding is most visible in color gradients, and Dell's Corporate Director of Displays Marketing says it is due to a faulty color management chip in some of the displays.

The TechReport

It seems that the demon art of vendor overclocking is pushing many GeForce 7900 video cards beyond their abilities and into an early grave. It's one thing when you overclock the card, and another when it comes out of the box overclocked with a warranty.

[H]ardOCP

With the arrival of Socket AM2 comes two new chipsets from ATI and NVIDIA, the CrossFire Xpress 3200 and nForce 500 family. In today's article we go over what's new with both chipsets as well as run them through our full suite of benchmarks to see how they perform. Does NVIDIA come out on top over ATI? Find out inside!

Curious to what degree has DDR2 memory aided AMD's latest Socket AM2 processors? Wait no more as the results are in from our extended round of testing and we've got the answers for you. It might just surprise you.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to move on up to 4GB of system ram? There may not be a need for that now, but it won't take very long until it's commonplace in enthusiast PC's. I take 4GB worth of top end DDR1 and DDR2 memory, and relate my overclocking and performance reports to you.

Techgage

I think the results of the testing really speak for themselves. AMD has gone the extra mile to provide the consumer with a quality HSF that is compact, quiet and cools damn well. It's refreshing to find a bundled cooler that can stand up to some modest overclocking, and do it pretty quietly.

We have three quite different laser mice from Microsoft, Logitech and Razer, along with a couple of mice mats designed with gamers in mind. Which combination will be the fragger's new best friend?

Bit-Tech

[H]ardOCP Consumer recently made a trip to Dell?s Round Rock, Texas campus to take a look at what they are doing when it comes to reducing bloatware and increasing performance in their XPS product lines. We cover everything from bloatware to installed driver revisions.

Mobile computing has become an important way of life that enables us to do more on the go. Today?s highly powerful mobile solutions mean that there is no longer any need for down time when away from the office. This is obviously very important and the fact that using a notebook, such as the MSI MegaBook S271, means performance will not be sacrificed, is also a big deal. The MegaBook S271 is particularly impressive as it is one of the first ever notebook computers to sport the latest up and coming mobile processor from AMD.

Although partner cards share the same GPU and basic board design, manufacturers are free to play around with bundled software and extras, coolers, clock speeds, and of course, pricing. Factory "overclocking" has become particularly popular of late, with some manufacturers increasing core and memory clock speeds by as much as 25% beyond "default" speeds?a margin that can have more than just a modest impact on performance. Higher clock speeds don't always come cheap, of course, but they can go a long way toward making a card stand out. So can a great game bundle, a quieter cooler, or a lifetime warranty.