Just got word that Digit-life's Dmitry Mayorov has posted his SiS655- R658 chipsets review! Here's a snip.

Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS), earlier known as a manufacturer of successful (and not very) low-end solutions for consumer desktops, decided on developing chipsets with the characteristics corresponding to the high-end level.

You already have LED fans and cold cathodes, but you want something unqiue again. Flexiglow has something that may spark your interest, check out these bubble lights!

DVHardware takes a look at the black version of the Enermax TecTroid A5 from MODHeaAdz. Enermax has recently launched a new line of peripheral products and this is one of it's multifunction panels. It's available in three different tastes: black, grey and white. Is this just yet another 5.25" fan controller or is it something special?

TomsHardwareGuide: "They are the size of a book, and yet they have all the functionality of a modern PC. We are talking about VIA's ultra-compact Mini ITX format mainboard based on the C3 processor. The latest generation works with DDR RAM and is said to handle multimedia well. We checked it out. " Although they seem to be popular in the european market, they are not widely available in Asia here. What do you think about these mini ATX form mobos? Warp 2 www.TomsHardware.com for the full read.

Just got word from Julio at the TechSpot.com that Per Hansson has posted his Crucial Radeon 9700 Pro & Sapphire 9500 Pro comparison. Here's a snip.

Without a doubt, if you are in for a new videocard, Radeon boards are currently your best bet considering soon-to-be-released GeForce FX boards won?t add much to the table (feature/performance wise), however, depending on your budget you might be debating whether to get a Radeon 9500 or a Pro model, or even put down the cash and invest in a more expensive 9700 Pro.

VR-Zone Hardware has just posted a review of the newest version of the Radeon 9700 Pro from FIC, the A97P! This one features copper RAM-sinks on front and a unique GPU cooler. Unfortunately no RAM-sinks on the back. Here's a snip:

Now we have First International Computer, or FIC as most call them, revamping their R300 product line and launching the A97P, an enhanced version of their first Radeon 9700 Pro, the AT010, hoping to capture the enthusiast market that FIC has been gaining respect and a strong following in the last few months. So will the A97P improve upon the first version of FIC's 9700 Pro, be attractive to enthusiasts and of course overclock well? Lets take a look.

TBreak was given the opportunity to test a first retail MSI GeForce FX. The card comes in a nicely designed package and features the notorious FlowFX cooling solution. More interesting than the card itself are the benchmarks. For benchmarking applications, Unreal Tournament 2003, 3D Mark 2001SE, 3D Mark 2003, Serious Sam Second Encounter, Vulpine GLMark, Code Creatures, Commanche4 and SpecViewPERF 7.0 were selected. The Detonators used in the review were 42.74 and 43.00 in comparison to Catalyst 03.2 on an ATI Radeon 9700Pro. There are a few hints in the review that should make you think:

....Once I understood what I was looking for in these speakers I went back and listened to more music and played a few other games, constantly cranking the volume higher and higher and the AOpen HP-590's started really rocking. It was like having a subwoofer inside the headphones and I began to realize while this wasn't a ground breaking technology it was a cool effect... Read the whole review over @ 3dXtreme

Overclockers Australia took the wireless BlueTooth desktop set for a spin. The included Microsoft Wireless Transceiver for Bluetooth works with keyboard and mouse, providing a wireless range of up to 30 feet, connects via USB and may reduce interference effect over radio transmission devices. The set also features customizable buttons on keyboard and mouse. Here is a snip: The signal refresh rate is excellent with this wireless keyboard. Typing seems to show no difference in speed of data transmission between this Bluetooth Wireless keyboard and a cabled keyboard. The transmission speed doesn't seem to be affected even when the keyboard is used quite far away from the transceiver. The only thing that can be a little irritating sometimes is that after long periods of non-use while the PC is on, typing something on the keyboard will not have any effect for a few seconds because the keyboard has to wake up, then the Bluetooth Transceiver has to pick up the signal again.

Wonder about your PCs CPU and RAM usage? Wonder how to help manage them better? Read on about just such a helpful utility program.

CDRLabs have published their review of Plextor's first DVD writer. The DVD drive supports 4x DVD+R and 2.4x DVD+RW recording speeds while CD-R and CD-RW can be written at 16x and 10x. Here is a short excerpt: For the most part, the PX-504A delivered the kind of performance we've come to expect from Plextor. Thanks to its 4x DVD+R writing speeds, the drive burned DVD's in record time. The PX-504A also had some of the fastest CD read speeds we've seen on a DVD writer. In our tests, it was able to read pressed and CD-R media at 40x and CD-RW media at a respectable 32x. Plextor's new drive also did much better than I expected in our DAE tests. While 33x DAE speeds aren't exactly earth shattering, the PX-504A did not have the slow down problems we've experienced with some other DVD+R/RW drives. Unfortunately, the PX-504A's performance does have a few low points.

Just got word that MaxPower from Nvnews.com has posted his Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Ultra/750-8X XP Golden Sample Review. Here's a snip.

Realizing the fact that this card is targeted for a niche market, all benchmarking was done at overclocked settings of 320/700. I opted not to include default clock settings to keep this review tidier and also because most of you have a good idea of default settings already.

The guy's at Toms Hardware have been lucky enough to have received some new high performance FireGL X1 & Z1 drivers! Here's a snip.

In the last article, the ATI FireGL X1 didn't turn out great results. There was a large discrepancey between the theoretical performance and the actual performance scores.

....Der Praxistest diente zur Leistungsermittlung der Gehäusebelüftung. Trotz der 6 Lüfter verhält sich der Miditower noch im angenehmen Geräuchbereich und die Lüfter sind nicht nervend oder aufdringlich. Die Belüftung des Towers ist mehr als ausreichend und optimal verteilt. Die passiv gekühlte Radeon 9700 pro wurde mehr als ausreichend gut gekühlt. Solche geringen Temperaturen haben wir bisher an dieser passiven Graphikkarte noch nicht gemessen..... Zum Review

Rainer has informed me that he has just published a review about the new SilentMaxx SF-201 case. The case seems to offer great front accessability with 4 USB ports, FireWire and audio jacks.

Review in german: Click here
Review in english: Click here

Another interesting case review from BurnOutPC. This time it's the double everything YY B0221 Cube case. It comes predamped with MagicFleece mats and offers double the size of a normal ATX miditower. Sleek black design with nice features make it stand out - at a price, which is weight: 25Kg's. But be sure to check it out. It's unique. The fact that its been sound damped by mats that are quite hefty also add the the considerable weight of the unit. This case is in it's original state already a beautiful case, however with some modding it could be even nicer. This case has everything you wish for, enough room for raid setups, good air circulation inside, and easy to reach hardware by removing the front bezel and it's sidepanels.

Big. That's my first impression. My second impression? Not so big. No, I'm not skitzo, it's just that the duct gives the illusion of fairly hefty girth. Take the duct off, and everything looks normal. Well, normal being size-wise at least.

You may point out that this isn't Zalman's typical "flower design", and it some aspects you would be right, but it is merely a change in its arrangement. Every time I see Zalman's finish on the bottom of their fin products, I gaze in awe. With that many individual fins, there should be some of roughness and imperfection, but I continue to see none.

... As you can see, the two PC cards come in very close on all specifications. The figures are so close that it would be impossible for the human ear to notice. The Revo card pulls away in # of channels however. Is this important? Well, currently there are no movies to my knowledge that support a 7.1 standard, but the revo card allows you to 'generate' a signal by combining signals from adjacent channels.

Thanks to Dave Baumann @ Beyond3D for letting me know that their Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz review is out! Here's a snip.

Last November Intel announced their fastest desktop processor to date: the Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz. While we've got familiar with 100MHz-200MHz speed hikes with new Pentium 4 releases, on this occasion Intel decided to introduce something new for the desktop PC in the Form of HyperThreading. How do these 3GHz CPU's perform? What is HyperThreading and what its supposed to do? Does Hyperthreading help or hinder application and games? We try to answer some of the questions in our Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz Review.

TweakHound has a new review up, the Logitech's Cordless Keyboards and Mice Review for the following products: Logitech Cordless Navigator Duo, Logitech Cordless Elite Duo, Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse!

Some of you may be wondering why TweakHound is looking at these products. The idea is simple. These products promise to be a tweaker's delight. If they live up to their claims they can offer customization and increased speed and efficiency while working with your computer. As our motto states, "Optimize your computing experience".