From the review: Put simply, AMD Athlon 64 CPUs are the gaming CPUs of choice, as shown by the brief look at gaming results on the previous page. Buy yourself a competent S939 board and run with a mid-to-high-end Athlon 64 CPU instead. Either that, or invest in an SLI-capable motherboard for either platform! However, if you absolutely, positively want to run a decent Intel gaming platform, the ABIT Fatal1ty AA8XE remains a great choice.

Recently I switched from an ATI X800XT PE Video Card to a Connect 3D X850XT PE PCI Express Video Card. I was impressed with the performance of the X850XT PE however the temperatures and the noise generated by this Video Card really left me disappointed with ATI?s latest flagship Video Card. My X800XT PE was just about as fast, silent and the load temperature of the Video Card never broke 60 degrees Celcius. From the moment I powered up my system with this red PCI-e beast installed I knew things were going to be different. At this point I could not go back to an AGP setup, isn?t PCI Express the future? So I began to look for an alternate cooling method. While surfing late one night I stumbled across the Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 Revision 2 GPU Cooler and while half asleep I placed my order.

HTPCnews has a new review up of the high end HIS X850xt IceQ II Turbo 256mb card... Here's a snippet:

I honestly could not be happier with the HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo VIVO 256MB AGP. The gaming performance was absolutely amazing and really did make for a more cinematic experience. Combine the gaming performance with the near silent cooling that the card comes with standard then throw in a component video adapter and the total experience is like no other.

Remember when Bill Gates said that Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM? I wonder what he would have to say about 512MB on your Graphics card!

With the bridging of the mid range X700Pro from PCIe to AGP, can this make it's mark as compared to rival Nvidia's 6600GT? Look here to find out more!

Altec Lansing is, once again, back with a new consumer product. They have been in the professional and home audio market for many decades and show no signs of slowing down.

The new iM4 is a portable, battery and AC adapter powered stereo speaker system. This product is a perfect match for an iPod or other potable player and is intended to be easily transported for your portable listening pleasure.

MBReview has released their latest motherboard review today, this time they've taken a look at Foxconn's Winfast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS. This is a budget oriented motherboard based off of the nForce4 Ultra chipset. If you're in the market for a budget nForce4 Ultra motherboard,give this review a once over to see if this board looks like what the doctor ordered.

When a company launches a product which offers more functionality and better features then previous versions you would expect a higher price ticket. Well guess again, Matrix Orbital pulls a bright rabbit out of their hat with their latest LED display in their MX series.

XtremeResources takes a look today at the Revoltec Star Series Procyon II 7 in 1 multifunction panel and UFO Design USB 2.0 Hub . Our European Hardware Reviewer Grace evaluates this latest offering from Revoltec, with a thorough look at it's multi-functionality and usefulness from the end-users perspective.

After testing out the 80mm version of the Aquagate Mini, we were interested in the bigger sibling, the Aquagate Mini R120. Spotting a 120mm radiator, look here to find out how it fares against the R80 with a 80mm radiator!

VR-Zone

ThermalRight is one of the most known and respected companies in the field of air cooling, thanks to its many excellent products that display cooling performance almost on par with water cooling systems. In the past few years, ThermalRight has released several successful series of coolers, some based on copper, some on aluminium and some combined both - the guiding purpose was to find the combination that would provide the best results. A few moths ago, ThermalRight released their new product series, called "SI", which is supposed to offer better performance and ease-of-use than the SP. In this review we will compare ThermalRight's SI-97 heatsink with several competing coolers (including its predecessor, the SP-97), in order to see if ThermalRight truly managed to outdo themselves

From the HEXUS.review: Dell is both large enough and savvy enough to engineer and market the best gaming system around. This Dimension XPS Gen-4, however, is overpriced and, from a package's point of view, hasn't been specified too well. Dell, I feel, needs to reduce the price to below £1,500 inc. VAT and offer a choice between CRT and TFT at no extra cost. Custom touches, such as a gaming mouse and windowed panel wouldn't go amiss, either. It's surprising to say this, but Dell, with this XPS system, isn't doing what it does best, that is, offering unbeatable value for money.

Asus is attempt to move into the desktop Pentium M market with this adaptor that allows you to use a 479-pin P-M processor on a 478-pin motherboard.

PC Perspective

If you have already spent some time reading articles on LCD monitors we are sorry but all you have learned during the last five years is going to fall apart. In the past, some LCD monitors built up strong reputations. Despite their long names some are still present in our dim memories. This list now needs to be completed with a new name: the 19" ViewSonic 3rd generation VP191b. The ViewSonic VP191b is the first MVA 8 ms monitor. We don?t want you to wait for the result of our tests: we were blown away. TN and IPS monitors are well on their way to disappearing.

nVidia introduces their first chipset for the Intel platform and we take a look at MSI's P4N Diamond and find out how well it performs.

T-Break

While S3 have long been in the PC graphics market, since their fall from favour following Savage 2000 they took a hiatus and didn't resurface until they produced their "DeltaChrome" graphics series, now under the ownership of VIA. While DeltaChrome implemented DirectX9 shader capabilities it failed to make too much of an impact in terms of market share most likely because of performance and time to market issues.

Now that I have moved into the Athlon 64 world I figured I should have a look at a couple Thermalright heat sinks and do a direct comparison. I am going to look at the XP 90 Aluminum/Copper Retail package that includes a 92mm fan, and the all copper big brother the XP 90C.

NGOHQ.com

XtremeResources Joe "Jbell" is back for another enthusiast case evaluation and review, this time looking at the A-Top Technology Gladiator Mid-tower Case.

While the X800 XL is quickly gaining a loyal following among ATI enthusiasts, the card was initially launched in PCI Express format only, requiring enthusiasts to purchase a new motherboard and graphics card if they wanted to upgrade. However, late last February ATI announced the X800 XL AGP, providing an upgrade path for these consumers. PowerColor is one of ATI's first board partners with a card available and it's up for review today. See how it performs against cards ranging from the RADEON 9800 PRO and X800 PRO/XT, all the way up to the GeForce 6600 GT, 6800, and 6800 GT in this article!

The Freezer coolers are made from Copper and Brass. The Brass has a clear coat finish, for a nicer visual appearance. They are the only available coolers which fit on an SLI system with 2x6800 Ultra/GT (with Innovatek NV40 or Alphacool NeXxos NVXP-2), or 2x6600 non-GT/GT (with flat cooler). On non-SLI systems the cooler should fit with any video card (except with VGA Silencer etc.).

techPowerUp!