Looking for a professional graphics card but not sure which one to get? Then check out this article @ Reactor Critical.com.

Although new professional 3D graphics cards with DirectX 9.0 support are just around the corner, a lot of users are looking forward to buy previous-generation graphics cards since their price is now more or less affordable, while they still perform very well in all professional appliactions. Read our new article Clash of Professional Titans: Wildcat VP, Quadro XGL, Fire GL 8800 and find the most in-depth research about geometry capabilities of the 3Dlabs Wildcat VP, Nvidia Quadro4 XGL, ATI RADEON 9700 and FIRE GL 8800 graphics processor.

Brent Justice over @ [H]ardOCP has updated his Radeon 9800 Pro review by adding a Radeon 9700 Pro vs. 9800 Pro comparison that was missing from his review: We take the two cards and compare them clock for clock and also take the soon-to-be released benchmark from UbiSoft's Splinter Cell for a drive.

The Radeon 9800 Pro was announced and reviewed almost three weeks ago. The Radeon 9800 Pro uses the newest VPU core from ATI which is codenamed R350. The 9700/Pro and 9500/Pro are based on the R300 VPU for comparison. Also announced three weeks ago was the 9600/Pro, based on the RV350 VPU and the 9200/Pro based on the RV280 VPU.

Japanese website PC Watch Impress has compiled the latest information on Intels upcoming processors. While Prescott will feature the much anticipated 800Mhz FSB, Tejas will introduce an even more impressive front side bus of 1066Mhz. Prescott is scheduled to be released in Quarter 4 this year and will be technically limited to maximum speeds around 5Ghz. Tejas, which is slated somewhere in 2004 / 2005 will reach core clocks of 4.4Ghz at launch. To position their new high-end processors Intel is improving HyperThreading technology on both processor cores as well as adding significantly more cache (Prescott: 16Kb L1 cache, 1Mb L2 cache). Read more for the updated specifications on both processors.

Corsair Memory, Inc., an industry leader in ultra-performance DDR DRAM modules for gaming and overclocking applications, has announced the development of a new high efficiency external water cooling unit for performance computing enthusiasts. This product is designed to provide up to 200 Watts of cooling while significantly reducing fan noise. The first in a family of cooling products, the HydroCool200 uses patented cooling technologies from Delphi Thermal Systems, the world's largest manufacturer of liquid-based cooling systems. Corsair, using Delphi's unsurpassed expertise in thermal physics, has engineered a feature-packed product that sets new standards in water cooling integration and performance.

Rainer sends me some words that he has some nice picture and informations about a Designer Micro Cube online.

Check it out for yourself if you would like it. The case is not available in normal stores, it is handmade for any customer and no mass-production. This case supports Micro ATX hardware only. Get more information by clicking on the picture.

Want to know how much an ATI Radeon 9800 256MB graphics card is going to cost? Then click on the ATI logo.

Seems we missed Gigabyte's press release in late February. Gigabyte Technology announced their VIA KT400A chipset based high-end platform - GA-7VAXP-A Ultra motherboard which supports the latest AMD Athlon? XP Barton processor. The GA-7VAXP-A Ultra belongs to new product family known as the K7 Triton series. GA-7VAXP-A Ultra is based on the previously well known GA-7VAXP Ultra, designed to meet the demands of present and future intensive application needs. Offering a variety of new and unique features, GA-7VAXP-A Ultra series enhances PC system performance and stability.

PCstats have posted an editorial, which takes a look at what you can expect from AMD's 400MHz FSB processors, when there released. Here's a snip.

While AMD just recently increased the AthlonXP bus speed from 266MHz to 333MHz in October 2002, there has been a lot of talk lately about the AthlonXP moving to a 400MHz bus speed as early as the third quarter of 2003. As most overclockers already know, FSB (Front Side Bus) speed is very important to overall system performance. As we have seen in the past with the Intel Celeron line of processors, a low FSB can severely limit the overall system performance of a processor regardless of what the CPU clock speed actually is.

Thanks to the guy's at VR-Zone for the heads up.

Apparently, AMD has added another speed grade into their current T'Bred "B" product line which is the XP 1600+ running at 1.4Ghz with a default VCore of 1.6V. XP 1600+ is expected to be even cheaper than XP 1700+ which is priced at US$54 and we can expect great overclockability from this chip like the 1700+ and 2100+. It is still unknown when the XP 1600+ will be in retail.

Just spotted this @ Amdboard.com. Those guys now have a list of more than 30 Opteron integrators that are ready to storm the market with 1U, 2U and 8U Opteron rack servers. This special page, on which integrators like Angstrom, Alinéos, NTSI, Polywell are listed will be updated on a daily basis.

Hercules, ATI's first tier hardware partner in Europe, has provided a first product shot of their upcoming Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card. The card features a brighter blue PCB than what we are used to from the earlier 9700 Pro and again sports the well received copper cooling solution and memory heatsinks. The card comes at standard clock frequencies: 380Mhz core / 340 memory on a 256bit bus with an initial 128Mbyte setup. Read more for the photo.

Just got word that Xbitlabs.com have posted a few details of Geil new Golden Dragon Series DDR500 memory modules.

GEiL demonstrated its new products in a system powered by Intel Pentium 4 CPU at 3250MHz on ABIT?s IC7-G mainboard based on Intel?s 875P core-logic with processor bus overclocked to 1000MHz.

Razer proudly announces an exclusive alliance with TerraTec in Europe. With the help of TerraTec they officially announced the new & much improved Mystify/Razer Boomslang 2500. For those of you who are not familiar with TerraTec, they are a relatively small, extremely high quality and aggressive maker of sound cards, video cards, audio components, speakers and more based in Germany.

Back from CeBIT 2003 Ace's Hardware's Brian Neal fed his readers with some small tidbits of news that uncover that Nvidia will probably refresh their nForce series with a FX 5200 installment and that Nvidia assumes that graphics card's eating up to 120W is what enthusiasts will plug into their systems. I would need a new PSU for such a beast. Incorporating a GF4 Ti engine was almost impossible, because it was too big to be economically feasable. Socketed GPU's on the motherboard where also a nice idea, but impossible due to space constraints, trace lenghts for the memory, and fact MB's usually only have 4 layers, as opposed to the 12(?) layers an FX Ultra requires. Expect 120+W (!) GPUs to appear in the near future. Though nVidia was actively researching SOI and Germanium oxide (?) to reduce power requirements, he didnt expect it any time soon, saying the graphics market changes too fast to warrant that sort of investments for now. So nVidia was concentrating on cooling solution to be able to use that sort of power-hogs.

As we seemed to have missed this news here's a round up by Xbitlabs.com and Tecchannel.de.

They have previewed the upcoming Canterwood/Springdale chipsets from Intel and the new 800MHz bus, which are to be introduced within a couple of months and include the first real benchmarks results.

To find out more about these innovative products click Read More...

German web magazine Chip.de has posted details of confidential SiS PR material on their website. According to the papers Xabre II will officially announced by June this year. However Xabre II will target the mainstream and budget markets of the video processor market and that in direct competition to established video processor manufacturers such as ATI and Nvidia. Xabre II will be a fully DirectX 9 compatible adapter with scalable VPU architecture. Quite a surprise is the SiS memory configuration: Xabre II will feature 128/256 Mbyte configurations of DDR-II or even DDR-III memory on a 128bit bus bandwidth. Xabre II will be manufactured on a 0.13 micrometer process.

MSI? MEGA By revolutionizing the application and environment of traditional multimedia PCs, MSI? will announce the MEGA PC series this March at CeBIT 2003 in Hanover, Germany. MEGA PC is a full-function multimedia PC that combines information and entertainment to offer hi-fi stereo, DVD/VCD, MP3, TV and high-performing computer functions in an infortaining component with novel appearance.

Just got word from Dave @ Beyond3D that their CeBIT coverage article has been posted.

Beyond3D had a short time at CeBit and we've detailed a few of our findings in a short article. We catch up on the 3D happenings with 3Dlabs/Creative, ATI, NVIDIA, SiS and also look at what Philips and VIA have to offer. Seeing as both ATI and NVIDIA also launched the new mobile video parts here we preview what Radeon Mobility 9600 and GeForce FX Go5200 & Go5600 have to offer the notebook user.

PEOPLE AT CEBIT reckoned that the AMD 3200+ using the Barton core could launch as early as April. But that's in contradistinction to the latest roadmaps we've seen which have it down for the middle of the year. So either something's gone better than AMD hoped, or possibly Intel's 3.20GHz Pentium 4 is galvanising the roadmaps.

The 3200+ is reckoned to have 512K of level two cache may well work with a 400MHz front side bus, the last stop on the Alpha EV6 station. What will the performance be like? FSB 400 Athlons will be able to compete with a Pentium 4 3.06, but how it will perform against a Prescott at 3.2GHz with 1MB cache is a different matter.

Just spotted this @ Digit-life.com

ABIT decided to set its own record at CeBIT 2003 and announced an Intel Canterwood-based system featuring 3.319GHz Pentium 4 overclocked via the bus: 13х multiplier provided 1021MHz FSB (255.34 х 4)! The memory has also been overclocked to 465MHz.