WE MISSED THIS ARTICLE here: PC Perspective’s review of the 780G+Athlon 4850e combo. There’s a lot of interesting details down there. For example the differences between hybrid SLI and hybrid Crossfire – something had to be different, innit? It also shows the difference between Intel and AMD’s power efficiency designs. Some stats thrown in for good measure too – however Intel’s upcoming G45 should upset this AMD advantage. 2008 is shaping up to be quite the Mexican stand-off. Worth reading.

Although Intel and AMD are announcing their new chipsettery at CeBIT, OCC has been dissecting a poor lil’ Asus Formula Striker II (part of the ROG family). It’s 780i based (ie: tri-SLI capable), and targeted at the Intel end of the CPU business. Expensive but fully-featured, thinks OCC. Just remember not to put your finger to the northbridge, lest you leave some skin behind. Click away.

The Canucks at HC have been beavering away at a Coolink Silentator CPU cooler. Arnie puns aside, HC thinks it does do a good job at terminating noise and heat with its huge 120mm fan. Considering its competitors are already on the market with similarly-designed solutions, the €39,90 price tag might be the mark of distinction on this here cooler.

Graphics card manufacturer is really a catch-all category that includes both the companies who source and build card, marketing them under their own labels. With graphics cards developing the way they have, these recent months, a lot of work has been put into marketing unique solutions (emphasis on the marketing and not the engineering, here). ECS isn’t really known for its graphics cards, nor for its cooling devices – so bung an Accelero S2 cooler on a reference 9600GT and this is what you get.

Ars Technica is known for its inclination towards covering fruity loop hardware. Naturally they have the occasional relapse and go into different areas like this case here. Apple TV is pitted against the Xbox 360 – as a home media server, of course. Well it isn’t really a face-off as there is no absolute winner, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless.

Hardware Mods has a review of CSX’s Overclocking CEC DDR2-800 2x2GB kit. Pretty standard from a heatspreader point of view, but it’s called “Overclocking” for a reason. They took it up to 485MHz (970). Get some Ubertaktungsfreudig memory here (or heart and kidneys here for Anglos).