PNY XLR8 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-8500 DDR2 SLI-Ready RAM

PNY’s new XLR8 RAM is available in two speeds PC2-8500 running 1066MHz with 5-5-5-15 latencies on 2.2V of power and PC2-6400 running at 800MHz. Both sets of RAM are SLI-Ready and have EPP. Today we are going to be looking at the faster PC2-8500 memory in a 2GB (2x1GB) dual channel kit. PNY uses a heat sink design that looks sort of like a comb. The black colored design has spikes that help remove heat from the memory. The required voltage for the memory is 2.2 V and in my test board the memory was automatically set at the correct voltages and timings thanks to the EPP support with my NVIDIA 680i Mainboard.

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BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2

The most important aspect of the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 that sets it apart from the other GeForce 8800 GTX video cards is its clock speed. This video card comes from the factory with a 51 MHz overclock on the GPU, and 200 MHz overclock on the memory. The GPU on this video card is clocked at 626 MHz and the memory is clocked at 2.0 GHz. Subsequently the stream processors are also overclocked at 1.45 GHz versus 1.35 GHz on a standard 8800 GTX. The memory speed increase extends the memory bandwidth to 96 gigabytes per second, and the GPU overclock increases the texture fill rate to 40 billion pixels per second. Apart from the clock speeds, it appears to be identical to its older brother.
The BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 has 768 MB of GDDR3 on board, running at 2.0 GHz on a 384-bit bus. The GPU has the same 128 streaming processors 6 ROP partitions that ever other GeForce 8800 GTX has. The GPU is manufactured on a 90nm process and comprises 681 million transistors. It fully supports HDCP and has two dual-link DVI-I connectors.
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GEFORCE 8XXX NEW DATA

We got some new data suggesting the final specs of the upcoming nVIDIA GeForce 8600 and 8500 series GPUs...As it seems GeForce 8600 GTS will NOT have 64 Stream Processors BUT only 32..The same is true for the GeForce 8600GT. On the other hand GeForce 8500GT has only 16 Stream Processor i.e 1 shader cluster as compared to 2 shader clusters in the8600 series and 8 shader clusters in the 8800GTX form..The cards will be available on April the 17.
Just my quick comment, what's important is that they will all support SLI technology!!
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ECS NF650iSLIT-A Motherboard – Much more affordable than 680i

The platform for Core 2 keeps growing on a daily basis - chipsets are coming left, right and centre - and we are more than pleased about that.

Intel has chipsets for their processor and it is no surprise that both are for high-end (975X), mainstream (P965) and value (G965). While Intel does make their own chipsets and some are very solid indeed, they aren’t always the most feature rich or technically impressive, what the market even wants. I do remember the old Intel I820 chipset and the attempt to push people on to RDRAM (Rambus) but that was a total failure, which they seem to have learnt from.

nVidia is definitely the major player in the Core 2 market. AMD/ATI does have a chipset for this market, but we haven’t heard much more about upcoming chipsets for this platform. VIA has no intention of pushing into the market as the major player, only SiS has the opportunity, and they are starting to work on this.

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CyberPower Gamer SLI KO QX6800 System

Today, we're looking at the other end of the spectrum from CyberPower. We know what they can do with a budget based build, but can they impress us when dropping a small fortune on a PC? The model we're looking at today we're told will cost $3999 (more on that later), and for $4K, we expect the white glove treatment. After all, that's more than some people pay for an engagement ring, and while we can't expect a PC to offer the same benefits as a giddy girlfriend turned fiancé, a four thousand dollar rig better put out (heh) nothing short of an ass kicking computing experience.

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