Sapphire watercooled HD3870X2

THE HD3870X2 IS STILL kicking and screaming in the high end while DAAMIT preps the launch of its forthcoming RV770 marchitecture (oh Malaga...). Sapphire, however, is finding ways to get some extra value out of the dual-RV670s card by adding it to the Atomic line-up of water-cooled cards. This allowed them to add a slight factory OC, from the standard 825MHz to 860MHz – that didn’t, however, stop it from falling behind a GX2. Still, there’s plenty of features (silence, quad-fire, etc...) and value in these cards. Read it here.

If you’re chewing away at your fingernails in anticipation to that GTX280 launch you might be interested in knowing that 8800GTs will go to rock bottom prices as soon as these launch. So when you actually see one of these on a shelf, the price should be just right for your HTPC rig. Tech Reviews in the UK tested a MSI NX8800GT Zilent is very similar to Vvikoo’s approach with a Zalman cooler – and the audio pass-through connector, so’s you can output audio through the HDMI cable interface. It also has the inconvenient dual-slot cooler+bracket. It’s also silent, as the name implies, but right now you’ll be paying through the nostrils for this one: £150 for a slightly quieter 8800GT than usual. Let the GT200 come along and lower its price.

XBit is putting Cooler Master’s claims of cooling superiority with their Aquagate Max. Cooler Master says its kit can cool 600W of power, which is a mighty bold claim. Sergey dissected the beast and found a small axe to grind about the water block, but apart from that the conclusions he draws are toward a “diamond in the rough”. There’s plenty of potential in this kit, provided Cooler Master heeds the warnings. Find out what he’s fussing about. Rig ht here.

Tweaktwonks just nabbed their first Zotac mobo, the GeForce 8300 AM2+. No fooling us smart users... it’s GeForce 8300-based and targeted at the AMD market... and this one doesn’t have any odd limitations with high-end Phenoms like most 780G boards. ZOTAC hasn’t fared bad with this first mobo, but there’s some food for thought in the article, as Cameron mentions: more planning, better layouts, no overclocking... Read the article here.

If you’re in the way of buying a new case for your soon-to-be PC, you might want to take a gander at Tom’s Shardware – they’ve assembled a battalion of top-notch, brand new cases, they think are worth showing off to the mob. 8 in total. Some with original features, others are pretty much rehashes of high-end models in cheaper suits. Worth a look.

Still on the matter of Nvidia’s launch of their not-so-noteworthy GTX280, you can get a look at what a retail card looks like over here at CPU3D. My... what a big card you have Mr. Chim... Look at the pretty pictures here. µ