Dempsey, Opteron and Nocona compared

A FEW days after reviewing the 6800GS and the S27 graphic cards, HKEPC brings us yet another exclusive in the form of the XGI Volari 8300 card. We're introduced to buzz words such as Extremecache and True Video. XGI is compared in this exercise to the Geforce 6200TC and the X300HM, all featuring 32MB 64-bit memory. Even then, XGI's offering lies firmly just behind the X300HM.

Foxconn releasing one motherboard after another and by next year, should be a serious competitor, especially if they start to take the enthusiast market seriously. PCstats for now tests the Winfast 761GXK8MC-S motherboard, a mATX model which runs on the SIS761GX, not really a competitor to the 6100 series IGP as PCstats puts it. The SIS Mirage I graphics is really a souped up 6326. The board is a couple of notches below a similar solution from Nvidia. A buy if you really want to get the cheapest around, not the best value for money.

What would you do with half a terabyte of storage? Such an amount of storage in one hard disk was one unheard of and reminds us how close we are to the 1 Tera barrier. Bigbruin is the latest in a series of websites to review the Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 hard disk which not only comes with 500GB but also comes complete with NCQ, SATA 2 support, 16MB cache, superb performance and a fantastic five year warrranty.

German website Computerbase.de checks seven speaker systems ranging from 2.1 to 7.1 models, from Creative, Logitech and Teufel. My German hasn't improved even with the use of translators. Tried to find out which one was the winner. Still looking for it. Quite a few photos of massive speakers and cute satelllites.

Legitreviews tests the Asus Z63A whitebook laptop. Why it is called whitebook laptop when it ain't white? Well, the reviewer should probably have called it whitebox since this laptop is actually a barebone system to which you can add the components that you wish. You even get a carry case with it as well as a Logitech laptop cordless optical mouse. The reviewer seems to have had a revelation; the Z63a is now top of his list.

2CPU has updated their preview of the Intel Bensley platform using the Dempsey Processor running at 3.46GHz. It was compared to the Xeon - Nocona Core - running at 3.8GHz and to the Opteron 246. As someone put it previously though, 2CPU is comparing a one year old platform - the Single core Opteron, with a current one - the Xeon - and one which will come in one year - Dempsey. Intel should be wary of the performance per power of its processors and the price it might well pay for keeping them cool. The Dempsey steals the show, but Apples are definitely being compared to Papayas here.