A few months ago we reviewed the Geforce FX 5700 Ultra, at the time it was Nvidia?s direct competitor to the Radeon 9600XT. At that time we were one of the few websites to suggest that the 9600XT was the better card and that the 5700Ultra just wasn?t quite good enough. Today we have our first look at the 5900XT, Nvidia?s new challenger for the mainstream market. Retailing at £170/$200 which is just above the 9600XT at £140 and the 9800 at £200 it should make a very interesting product. We also have a look at Sapphires 9600XT, Sapphire is my number one choice of powered by ATI products and I?m very interested to see how their card stacks up against the 5900XT.

We recently moved to a new server and installed our very own CoolTechZone forums. We would like to make these forums one of the best support forums on the net. To achieve our goals, we need your support. We would like you to join our forums and start a brand new community. As an appreciation to those who join we will be holding a contest. Click on the Pic to enter the Giveaway!

OCIA.net checks out the PowerRight UV Reactive 500w Modular PSU in their latest review. Below is a direct quote from the review:

"This is the first power supply which has, as its name indicates, a modular design. What this means is that you are able to remove any unused power cables from your case, thus decreasing clutter and improving airflow, not to mention improving the all important aesthetics of your cases' internals. The PowerRight power supply also dons an acrylic UV treated casing, 2 LED fans with colored blades, as well as laser cut fan guards."

"Intel's motherboards have hardly been considered the "enthusiast choice" by the more tweaking-oriented of computer users, and for good reason: no voltage adjustments, no overclocking... not even RAM timing tweaks. What Intel DID bring to the table were good, solid, stable motherboards that fit their latest processors like a glove. Shortly after Intel announced their flagship Canterwood board, the D875PBZ, they mentioned a software suite in the works that would allow *gasp* TWEAKING! Intel's "Desktop Control Centre" has now been out since late 2003..."

There are many people who can?t afford the high-end video cards but still want decent game play. Mid-level cards from both nVidia and ATi are still in production and have great market shares. People looking for best deals will appreciate the 9600s and 5700s.

Thanks goes out to TweakXP.de who found the Athlon 64 Processor Power and Thermal Data Sheet. The site is in german but you will understand the most important facts. Else read the paper and see everything in very detail

Antialiasing performance comparison between these two high level boards

From the italian Hardware Setup arrives an interesting article that does a analysis about speed performance and image quality of Voodoo5 6000 and Radeon 9800 Pro cards with antialiasing filter enabled and compares measurement results by clear diagrams.

OCIA.net checks out the ThermalRight SLK-947U in their latest review. Below is a direct quote from the review:

"I debated using the X-Plate, but didn?t feel like going through the hassle of removing the P4 retention mechanism on my board. This was one of the perks of this heatsink. It has many different possibilities for mounting, so if you are using an AMD or a P4, it should still go on without a hitch?..or so I thought."

Hardware Pacers has posted a review on the Auravision eluminX Keyboard. Here is a snippet:

"The keyboard produced an attractive light blue glow through the transparent keys which prevented the keyboard from ever appearing dull. The transparent keys made the illusion that the keys floated in midair. Not only did the keyboard contain Electroluminescent Technology, it also contained the Ergonomic Tactile Key Technology, which allowed easier typing. This keyboard is highly recommended to anyone who has cathode rings, UV sensitive products, LED fans or other LED products to further visually enhance their computer."

"The One-Touch series of drives are great for storing large amounts of data including music and movies and should prove to be a valuable asset to any multimedia enthusiasts. With the included FireWire ports, you can stack a large amount of these drives on top of each other without having to worry about heat issues, and the auto power down feature will help ensure that these drives last a long time."

AnandTech have scooped SIS's latest Roadmap! Here's a byte.

SiS' P4 chipset roadmap is very similar to Intel's in that none of their flagship chipsets this year will feature AGP support; SiS is moving very aggressively to PCI Express for graphics. This leaves VIA as the only chipset vendor providing a dual AGP/PCI Express solution for the Pentium 4.

OCIA.net checks out some UV CCFL Fan Grills & a 3D UV Fan Grill in their latest review. Below is a direct quote from the review:

"Now that is what I call green! It really lit the whole case up! I have quad blue LED fans all over my case and you sure wouldn’t know it with this joker hooked up. Also note that both grills came with their own separate inverter box. But these inverter boxes have a place for two plugs, so you really can plug both fan grills into one and have them both turned on instead of mounting two switches."

"The Lost In Space (L.I.S.) VFD Blue Platinum from VL System is a fantastic LCD with a great software package. It is very easy to operate and configure, and outputs information that is handy for the average user and mandatory for overclockers."

"The Xaser III Lanfire Case is a feature packed, light weight case with everything from back lit fireballs to an LCD fan controller. It has many ease of use features from the front mounted USB and Fire Wire ports to the removable 3.5? cage and the quick release PCI clip. Overall, for the features that you get in the Xaser III Lanfire Case is one of the top cases that I have had the pleasure of reviewing...."

OCIA.net checks out the SilverStone 3.5" Front I/O Module in their latest review. Below is a direct quote from the review:

"This little panel takes a few of the commonly used ports, including USB, firewire, headphone and microphone, and makes them accessible to you at the front of the case. This can not only benefit your fingers by preventing you from accidentally putting them into a fan through a wide gap in your fan grills, but can also help with device cables not being long enough. Game controllers are notorious for not having a long enough USB cable to reach from the back of your computer, to your hands, all while you are leaning back in your comfy chair."

OC Workbench have posted a 2 page preview of ECS's new KV2 Extreme board based on VIA's K8T800Pro chipset for the Socket 939 CPU supporting Dual Channel DDR 400 for the K8 64 bits processor.

AnandTech have thrown up their 2004 Graphics Card Roundup! with over 20 different cards, this roundup packs in everything we need to make a decision on which vendor's card to buy. They look at noise, heat, overclocking performance, and much more.

AmdBoard have snagged the first photo of AMD's upcoming Socket 939! Click Here

ViperLair reports that the ATi AIW 9700 Pro is a great card, but some users may experience a PC shutdown issue... at least we did. If this affects you, you may want to checkout our workaround.

Many enthusiasts know how important it is to keep their systems cool. We have reviewed many heatsinks, fans and have always discussed temperatures, heat issues, airflow and other things that will aid in keeping a system cool. Have you ever wondered what happens to heat when the computer is shut down? Is it still there? Actually, it slowly dissipates and eventually your system returns back to its cool and idle system temperatures. Evercool didn?t think that heat was dissipating fast enough so they found a solution to fix that.