EPoX 5P965+ GLI — a Motherboard Based on Intel P965 Chipset

EPoX hasn't presented new products for Intel for a long time: in fact, the manufacturer made a pause after i945-based models. Indeed, these models provided support for dual-core Pentium D processors. And hard-driving enthusiasts (the traditional target audience of motherboards from this company) were much more interested in AMD solutions, so EPoX launched all new models for this platform. The situation has changed drastically with the release of Core 2. Now this segment of the market is of most interest. The announcement of several i965-based motherboards looks only natural. In future we can expect the chipset base to expand — in particular, to use cheap products from the NVIDIA nForce 600i series.

5P965+ GLI has three PCI slots (quite a lot for these days). Access to them may be blocked only by a large video card installed into the second PCIEx16 slot. As this motherboard does not officially support SLI, all the three PCI slots will be accessible in most cases.

Just my quick comment is that this board is first of it's kind that has second PCIEx16 slot. And it seems that it supports second PCIE graphic card, it's just that in scope of that test nobody tested this board either in SLI or Crossfire mode. Well maybe they will do it in the future. I think it's just great that it's possible to connect second PCIE card to Intel chipset motherboard, without having to be an Ati type of card.

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nVIDIA Certifies Thermaltake Armor as SLI Ready Full Tower Case

Thermaltake has proven again to be the No.1 choice for enthusiasts worldwide with nVIDIA certifies Thermaltake Armor chassis as one of the only two Dual GeForce 8800 GTX SLI Ready chassis in the world.

SLI is known to be the essential of a hardcore gamer or enthusiast and GeForce 8800GTX is the newest graphic card from nVIDIA. Unfortunately, with hundreds of chassis in the market to choose from, it’s very difficult to select the most suitable chassis for user’s SLI system. nVIDIA review all its qualified partners and their chassis, then carefully select and certify chassis which meet SLI requirement and provide specification/environment that can bring out the best performance of SLI system.

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Dual-Core Processors in 3D Games

As dual-core processors have been actively spreading in the market for the last years, multi-processing features are appearing in games and other non-professional applications. Dual-core processors have been rarely used in desktop computers up to now. They were mostly employed by professionals and rare enthusiasts, who worked with such applications as 3D modeling and rendering, as well as media processing and encoding, which were initially designed to support several CPUs.
Games offered weak support (or even no support) for two and more processors, because multi-processor systems were not popular among gamers because of their high price. A couple of years ago there started to appear mass-scale dual-core processors, but their price was too high for a common user for some time. So they were again bought by enthusiasts, only on a larger scale. With the launch of Intel Pentium D, as well as Core 2 Duo and AMD Athlon 64 X2, both companies that manufacture desktop x86 CPUs significantly dropped prices for their processors and still do it from time to time. As a result, dual-core processors are only a little more expensive than single-core models. Besides, x86 processors develop towards multi-cores.

Test include:
Processors: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Socket 939
Motherboard: Foxconn WinFast NF4SK8AA-8KRS (NVIDIA nForce4 SLI)
RAM: 2048 MB DDR SDRAM PC3200
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB
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CrossFire on a Stick - 'Just Say No' To Four GPUs

"Double your pleasure, double your fun." Well that is what Wrigley's stated about its Doublemint Gum. When 3DFX launched Scan Line Interleave for the Voodoo 2 it proved to be true as 1024x768 never saw such amazing frame rates. Later on the world was wowed with SLI once again with Scalable Link Interface. Nvidia pushed the envelope again for more performance but ran into the same proverbial brick wall that 3DFX did with the Voodoo 5 6000. Two cores were awesome but four was a bit too much to handle.

Not to be left out of the excitement (or the profits from selling 2 cards instead of one), ATI joined the party late in the game. While the first version of CrossFire with Radeon X850s was not a crowd pleaser, later versions were much more user friendly and pack some punch. Although AMD, Intel and Nvidia started toying with quad processor configurations ATI decided to steer clear.

Just my quick comment is that this card received a good review on TH, but I really don't see what is the reason for this. Since that dual graphic card got beaten my single 8800GTX and even in some benchmarks by 8800GTS. Not to mention that this product in not finished yet, but still TH hopes to see that this type of cards will work in Crossfire combination, and they expect that it will outperform SLI configurations. Nvidia has a solution that works, and Ati? Well you be the judge for yourself.

Ah well speculations, speculations (or better to say marketing gimmicks)....

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NFORCE 650I Ultra overclocking result

We already introduced the fundamental characteristics of standard motherboard on base of chipset nForce 650i Ultra . It was possible to note that this new chipset has some limitations in comparison with elder . In any case, if support SLI does not interest you, then the chipset nForce 650i Ultra is a good choice.

Associates published one of the first motherboard review on base of chipset nForce 650i Ultra with standard design. Such motherboard have four-layer design and passive chipset cooling . The authors of this review recommend focusing attention on improvement in the cooling of the north and south bridges, to gain stability with high fsb frequency

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Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB vs. 320MB - is BIGGER really BETTER

Okay, so the cheaper 320MB GeForce 8800 GTS alternative has been out in force for a little over a month now and at just $300 US it is a great buy. Realistically in this price bracket the GeForce 8800 GTS (320MB) runs somewhat unopposed, though the Radeon X1950XT cards are now very cheap. However, those looking at purchasing a GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card have to make the tough decision to spend either $300 US or $400 US. Of course if you are limited to a $300 US budget then the 320MB version of the 8800 GTS becomes an obvious choice.
Generally when a new graphics card such as the GeForce 8800 GTS (320MB) is released, there is much more to talk about such as increased pipelines, additional memory bandwidth, different clock frequencies for both the core and memory. However as I mentioned earlier, there is absolutely no difference between the 320MB and 640MB versions of the GeForce 8800 GTS, other than the onboard memory capacity of course. Both GPU’s are based on the G80 architecture which features a 90nm design process.
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Budget PSU Roundup with HardwareCanuck

Well here we are on my first PSU review here or anywhere else for that matter and this one is going to be a big one. This roundup will focus on four budget-minded power supplies which range in price from $45 to $75 with one power supply being included in the price of a $120 case. I will give all these units a thorough going-over and put them through a battery of tests. I suggest you read this whole review as in many places I will refer to performance differences between the units. You should also know that these are all on an even playing field as they were all purchased by me so I do not want ANY of them to fail.

Just my quick comment that this review is good because it includes two EVGA 7900GTO cards in test! So you can see how much quality and reputation of PSU is important in setting up SLI comp. So here it goes Sparkle, Nmedia, Enhance and Antec go head to head....

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AM2 SLI-capable Main boards - 2*Asus and 1 MSI

In the today's Review we regard now today three Main boards with NVIDIAs current chip corroding of the 500-Serie, which have at present a not insignificant portion with sold Main boards for AMD CPUs. ASUS made us available with the model Crosshair a copy for the Over the Top Enthusiast, which flanks the M2N32-SLI Deluxe already mentioned. Both use NVIDIAs Top model nForce 590SLI, while the third Main board in the federation, a K9N SLI Platinum of MSI, which nForce 570SLI represents smaller brother.

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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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Inno3D iChill 7300GT 256MB GDDR3 Graphics Card Review

Roughly around a month ago we reported that Inno3D plans to introduce separate overclocked cards’ range in their product line. Every other successful graphic card manufacturer has one and thus Inno3D brought one as well. Instead of just increasing the clocks and renaming the overclocked models, Inno3D opted for a different product line approach and brought ichill in to equation. Basically the concept behind ichill is a product line equipped with best of the best of graphic card cooling industry has to offer. Currently different models equipped with Zalman’s V series and Arctic Cooling’s Silencer and Accelero series have been introduced but it wouldn’t be long when they bring 8 series card with better cooling performance as well. Aside all the bells and whistles, the idea behind this is to offer cards pre-equipped with third party cooling devices saving customer's costs and efforts while reducing significant RMAs from overheating and so on. Inno3D, however, propogates the idea of producing cream of graphics cards through several enhancement over the lowend model, we'll see how that is achieved through this product here in this review.

We have a 7300GT model from the ichill to start with Inno3D, although this is our first Inno3D product review, we hope to work with them on future endeavors as well. The 7300GT here is equipped with arctic cooling’s Silencer 6. Inno3D offers 7300GT, 7600GT, 7600GST, 7900GS and 7950GT under ichill brand, we just happened to acquire the lowend model. However it is a fact that no one has reviewed iChill's lowend and mainstream series so its a good chance for those who want to see how these cards par up against your everyday off the shelf graphic card.

Just a quick comment - SLI is also supported on this card..

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Liebermann Olympus 20" Widescreen Notebook with SLI Announced

Just when you thought a 19" notebook was big, the Liebermann Olympus 20" gets rolled out. The Olympus 20" seems almost mythical based on the spec sheet. It supports Intel's Pentium-D Dual-Core and Extreme Edition processors, along with quad DVI-out, an integrated 3 megapixel camera, dual Blue-Ray and HD-DVD optical drives, and dual graphics cards with up to 1GB RAM each.....
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The Liebermann Olympus 20" sounds pretty hot right? The only down side is the machine sounds too good to be true, and may in fact be. There's no release date known and the company representative we talked with could offer no guidance on pricing either. Rest assured it will probably approach, if not surpass $10,000. If nothing else it acts as a nice proof of concept.

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