Monster SLI motherboard from Asus impresses

HEXUS presents the ASUS P5W64 WS Professional motherboard. What makes this one particularly impressive is the fact that it has four PCI Graphics x16 slots and it does support Crossfire. Now imagine having four X1950XT cards on that baby. The board uses the i975 chipset and accepts up to 8GB memory. Other bullet points on the spec list include eight SATA2 ports, two GbE LAN, two Firewire and ten USB 2.0 ports as well as HD Audio support. This is definitely a high end gamers/workstation motherboard, especially as it overclocks like hell.

Modthebox reports on the Silverstone LC-19 Slim SFF case. It is small, can accommodate mATX boards and even has a riser card for one PCI. On top of that there's three drive bays - although you will have to use a slim optical drive. It looks small enough to be tossed underneath your DVD recorder without looking out of place. Note that power is provided by an external adaptor. The reviewer built a system using an old XP 1800+ CPU. The great thing about the casing is that there is a flap in front which hides the connectors and the CDROM front.

Firingsquad has a look at the brand new Nvidia 7900GS which takes on the X1900GT from ATI. Core clock is set at 450MHz while effective memory clock is stands at 1.32GHz. The GS fits just behind the GT and is well ahead the X1900GT when it comes to memory bandwidth. Between the two though, it is a toss up to be fair. However, if you plan to go SLI and overclock it - like EVGA did, then you have a winner.

Another Nvidia card on display this afternoon is the Galaxy Geforce 7100GS which is located at the lowest rung of the 7xxx family tree. HKEPC has an article on it. Cards cannot get more basic than that. It has D-Sub, DB15 and S-Video ports together with a simple fan and the PCB has been shrunk to save a few cents and improve airflow. Obviously, this card is destined to replace the 6200TC and surprisingly, it does support SLI. Not much separate the two though in terms of performance. Unfortunately for it, the X1300HM beats it in the majority of benchmarks.

PCPerspective tests two boards that have been reviewed together several times in the last few weeks. The MSI K9A Platinum and the ECS KA3 MVP are both based on the Xpress 3200 ATI chipset and are both AM2 models. They both are mid range models costing more or less the same thing. PCP finds the MSI one to be slightly better because of its overclocking capabilities, a better BIOS and layout. If you can live with those, then you might consider the ECS model for its eSATA dongle and the Top Hat save-my-bios feature.

GameApex reports on the A4Tech X-718 optical mouse. A4Tech is specialised in budget/mainstream input peripherals and lays heavy emphasis on appearance and marketing. Interestingly, the mouse comes with a three-year warranty. Other features include a program called MiceJudge which allows you to test your USB mice. The X-718 is glossy and colourful to say the least and has a DPI-shift features. Overall, this makes it similar to one recent Logitech rodent. Cheap it is, but wireless, it ain't. Great job A4Tech.

If you want to send in reviews, hardware or software, don't hesitate, just bring them in. I am particularly fond of exotic hardware that you won't find elsewhere. Even if the review is not in English, as long as it is interesting and entertaining. Send it in. Also I would be glad if someone could point me to a recent directory of hardware websites. µ