MEMORY VENDORS are still trying to make a buck out of the DDR2 market with some very interesting proposals in the performance camp. PC-2 8500 (that would be 1066MHz) isn’t that expensive (when compared to DDR3) and if it comes in a 2x2GB kit, all the better. PC Geeks & Freaks has a review of the Patriot Viper Series PC2-8500 2x2GB kit. You can easily plug 8GB on Windows Vista 64 and come out under $250 (Newegg.com prices). Pity they didn’t match it against DDR3-1066 memory, though. See the number crunching here.

A dime a dozen really fits the bill when it comes to card readers. Prolific, cheap and able to read dozens of card formats at relatively high speeds these things make our life easier in so many ways we stopped counting. Xbit Labs has 27 of them lined up for your reading pleasure – they even threw a couple of no-namers in the cauldron. The reader technology is way behind the read and write speeds the cards allow for, so any choice you make – except for FireWire – will let you down. On that note, avoid the old controllers like the AU6362, which provides the cheapest solution, but also the slowest, says Aleksey.

Eliot at Fudzilla has yet another CPU review in store for you - this time a budget Wolfdale E8200. Spinning at 2.66GHz, the E8200 doesn’t offer much to the enthusiast as it’ll make purchasing memory that more expensive if you attempt overclocking the FSB. You’re better off with the E8400 if you’re into that. Extensive use of CPU-Z, right here.

Mark at HardOCP has matched some new graphics cards with some old ones in first person shooter scenarios. No matter what amazing stuff happens in RTS, games like Crysis, CoD4 and UT3 really are standard bearers for graphics cards. Asus, eVGA and KFA2 are the competitors here, as well as reference designed HD3870 and 8800GTs. If you have no clue who KFA2 is, don’t worry, they’re part of Galaxy, so you now you know. They’re supposed to be a bit of a bred by gaming enthusiasts kind of company. Come results time it’s showing promise. Read on.

Tweak Town has a straightforward test of a retail 9800GX2 from Zotac, but we think it’s the first one that focuses strictly on the X2 vs. GX2 question. GX2 is definitely some frames ahead of its most direct competitor, but when it comes to price, X2 is still a very interesting proposition. It’s odd that no-one did something this simple before, but here it is. Which single card dual GPU is best? Get to the bottom of the dilemma right here.

NAS is an interesting proposition if you have a ton of storage needs and you have the tech skills to own, configure and operate a home network. Mediasonic sent their SU2LA Dual Bay RAID + NAS unit to the frozen wastelands of Canada (which, btw, we like very much), to the chaps at Hardware Canucks. As indicated by the name you can plug this storage unit directly to your PC or plug it to your network AND RAID together the individual drives. Its only serious problem is being 10/100, not being able to squeeze that gigabit of data down your good ole network. That said, HC recommends it for no frills NAS. Read all about it.