Sapphire has engineered their own version of the Radeon HD 4850 with cost and cooling in mind. The card's new unconventional heatsink looks good and keeps the card cool - far below reference design temperatures. The best of all is that the card costs only $169.99 online which makes it the cheapest HD 4850 available today.
Today NVIDIA released their updated GeForce GTX 260 GPUs which come with 24 extra shaders, for a total shader count of 216. Zotac has also overclocked their card beyond the GTX 280 clock speeds which results in a card that is just 1% slower than the regular GTX 280, yet costs over $130 less.
Head-Direct EF1 is the name of a brand new headphone amplifier made by the guys behind Head-Direct. The amplifier is a hybrid design which means that it mixes the best from both tube based amplification and solid state amplification.
The Evercool Transformer 6 is a cooler made to look good and perform well. The included fan controller allows it to remain very quiet for day to day usage but then give added performance and brighter LED lights for the overclocking enthusiast. With a large 120 mm bright blue LED fan, six heat pipes, a stainless steel coating and performance coming close to the newer HDT coolers, the Transformer 6 is certainly one to please!
iStarUSA's xAGE-N99 HDD Docking Station is a simple, easy to use hard drive dock for 2.5" and 3.5" internal hard disks. It utilizes most of the transfer speeds that USB 2.0 has to offer and demonstrates excellent read and write speeds with a great price/performance value. For a company that has been making server and storage products for close to twenty years, iStarUSA certainly does not dissapoint.
Today AMD launches their new cards based on the RV730 graphics processor. The Powercolor PCS HD 4670 we have on our testbench today comes with a dual slot heatsink which offers excellent cooling and low noise. Together with the serious gaming performance of this card, AMD has managed to successfully position their product in the sub-$100 segment.
HIS has just released the IceQ4 version of the AMD Radeon HD 4850. The IceQ4 cooler is a dual-slot solution which ensures low temperatures under both idle and load. Also HIS has overclocked the card which results in a nice performance boost compared to the reference design card.
PQI's newest class 6 SDHC card is aimed at those looking for a cheap and fast storage card. Being a competitively priced class 6 card it is definitely worth considering if you are looking to upgrade your camera or other write intensive devices' memory.
NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400 GT Series is based on the same G96 GPU that is also used on the 9500 GT. The 9400 GT has half the shaders however, which seriously limits the uses of the card in a gaming PC. On the other hand this greatly reduces the heat output which allows a completely passive solution. Point of View differentiates their card by using 1 GB of video memory and bundling a full version of the Wall-E game.
The Mirrorbox is an all-in-one card reader, able to handle every card you throw at it. It has a stylish black housing with compact dimensions and everything to get access to those holiday images on that memory card.
The Chrome 440 GTX is the latest card from S3 Graphics. It features all the main bullet points like DirectX 10.1, PCI-Express 2.0, native HDMI with integrated audio, small form factor and low heat output. But is this enough to compete with the offerings from ATI and NVIDIA?
The Dominatrix is OCZ's newest dive into the gaming mice market. It offers features usually found on much more expensive mice at an entry level price point and comes in a stylish blue and black color. You can store your profiles in the mouse so they are available on any PC, even without the mouse software.
The new "Turbo" Compact Flash card from A-DATA raises the bar from 266x to 350x performance. It also adds Ultra DMA capability and uses SLC flash memory to attain insane speeds never seen before. If you are looking to build a solid-state HDD using CF Technology then this is one of the cards you should definitely consider.
Palit is one of the first AMD board partners to release a custom Radeon HD 4870 version. Their new HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition comes with a completely revamped cooling assembly that features two fans to keep the card cool. Also included is a DisplayPort connector and a Turbo switch which lets you select the operating frequencies of the card. The mandatory "overclocked out of the box" is included as well.
Power Line adapters utilize the existing cables in your home to establish a network where Wifi is not an option. The Airlive HP-3000E is the company's newest offering of such a system, it promises up to 200 Mbps of bandwidth.
This month's interview is with Tamas Miklos who is the brains behind the popular system information software Everest. He talks about his personal background, first experience with computers and how he came to make Everest.
Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig, Germany is the biggest tradeshow for the Gaming Industry. So it is just normal to see loads of pretty German girls around, showcasing the latest console and gaming products. We took 240 photos of the sweetest girls on site. Full-res images are available in case you want to see your favourite babe every day, as desktop wallpaper.
QPAD|UC is the name of a brand new cloth based mouse pad from QPAD. The mat is available in four different sizes and the shape is similar to that of the hard QPAD mats. It is QPAD's first attempt at making a soft cloth based mat, see how this giant performed in the review.
Travagan's Green is a small headphone and speaker amp. It has an integrated DAC and can be hooked up to your PC via a USB cable. Besides the Green we also received a pair of 2" mini speakers. The set looks stylish, its main objective is to provide you with a good listening experience both with mini speakers and headphones.
Tension Labs EAP03 is the name of a brand new earphone audio processor that can boost your experience in a variety of ways. The EAP03 features a built in microphone and can sample it into the audio feed, providing you with the power to control the level of isolation you want from your earphones.
Sunbeam's Core Contact Freezer is a cost effective CPU cooler for AMD and Intel CPUs. Its four heatpipes make direct contact with the processor for optimum cooling. Also included in the package is a fan controller which allows you to optimize the acoustics to your usage scenario.
Mushkin has also jumped the 4 GB DDR2 memory bandwagon and is offering these kits at tighter than usual latencies. This kit runs at 4-4-4-12 at 2.0 - 2.1V.
Powercolor's latest HD 4850 PCS graphics card is based on the AMD HD 4850 reference design but comes with an improved cooler and slightly increased core clocks. While the overclock makes only a small performance difference, the cooler substantially improves the product. Even under load the PCS 4850 is barely audible which makes it the quietest graphics card ever tested - of all performance classes.
Today AMD released their new HD 4870 X2 graphics cards. They are based on two RV770 GPUs on one PCB. With a total of 1600 shaders and 2 GB GDDR5 memory the card has excellent chances to achieve the goal "fastest graphics card in the world".
Akasa has taken the Mirage-62 case and has updated it using thick aluminum panels, adding air vents which also can be used for water cooling units and a stylish new front door. The mid-tower case features loads of space and some clever design choices to make it big enough for even the largest power supplies and longest graphics cards.
