Month: February 2009

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 @ Hardware Canucks

“Currently, Gigabyte is full steam ahead with regard to Intel’s latest chipset, and the company has the second most substantial roster of X58 motherboards, with the current count clocking in at an impressive six models. From the Top-of-the-Line EX58-EXTREME to the surprisingly budget-friendly EX58-UD3R, all the models share the sleek new White & Blue colour-scheme, Ultra Durable 3 design attributes, and enough integrated features to make a smartphone jealous.”

Foxconn Renaissance X58 @ OC3D

“The re-worked American Megatrends BIOS is also a lot friendlier than past offerings from the Digital Life range – it’s not perfect, but definitely a lot better. Admittedly, the motherboard is targeted towards the HTPC enthusiast and the BIOS configurations reflect that. The Foxconn Renaissance was never meant to be an overclocking behemoth. If you want one of those then check out the Foxconn Bloodrage.”

Leadtek 9800GTX+ @ Bjorn3D

“With today’s newest additions to graphics cards, it seems like they keep getting bigger and bigger. And along with each rehash we usually see a die decrease, but the card doesn’t necessarily get smaller in size. This is unfortunate for people with smaller cases or mid tower cases where the hard drive cage gets in the way.”

Sapphire Radeon 4670 @ OCModShop

“And then, along comes ATI. Or is it AMD? No, it’s still ATI, I guess. Anyway. Along they come and attempt to save us penny pinchers a few bucks. And you know what? Every now and then they create a card that just possibly could do the job without the distinct sound of a snicker coming from under the heatsink.”

Gigabyte 512M 9800GT @ TechwareLabs

“Following up on our budget friendly reviews of hardware worth your hard earned cash we take a look at the video card segment. Looking to upgrade your graphics prowess but you don’t want to break the bank? Today, Jason D takes a look at the most economical performance upgrade, the 9800 GT.”

OCZ 6GB Triple-Channel 1333 MHz DDR3 @ Benchmark Reviews

“System memory is one of the most over-looked hardware components in computer systems, and with applications demanding greater memory overhead it is best to use as much memory as allowed. But not all memory is made the same; and even memory of the same speed can have different consumer targets. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the performance of an entry-level triple-channel product for the Intel Core i7 platform.”

Crucial PC3 10600 3x2GB Kit @ OC Club

“As delivered from Crucial, the latencies on this set of modules are 9-9-9 at 1333MHz. This, of course, they will do at 1.5 volts. Surprisingly, they do 7-7-7-20 at 1333MHz at 1.58 volts as well. Running at 7-7-7 was nice at the bottom end but the modules didn’t get too much further without big volts until the CAS latency was increased to 8.”

AMD Phenom II X3 720/X4 810/X4 920 @ Digit-Life

“We can conclude that Phenom II processors demonstrate more attractive performance than their direct competitors from the Core 2 series. For example, the 810 processor looks much better than Q8200 and Q6600 that has a much larger cache.”

Sapphire 780G @ Bjoprn3D

“In fact with onboard graphics, that will take some load away from the CPU thus making your video run smoother, would be perfect for an HTPC. This also happens to be AMD’s newest socket, AM2. This socket includes a wide range of CPU’s from single core CPU’s, all the way up to quad cores.”

Gigabyte GA-X48-DS5 @ PCStats

“Gigabyte’s high-end GA-X48-DS5 motherboard is, as you might have guessed, based on the Intel X48 Express and ICH9R chipsets. It’s core logic offers up 32 lanes of PCI Express 2.0 bandwidth which makes this platform great for running a pair of Crossfire’d ATI videocards at full tilt.”