Are Gainward graphics cards Palit ones?

THE BRAND named Palit is not a well known one - unfortunately I would say. The company makes quite a few good products and Digit Life reminds us that they used to be known as Daytona. Through mergers and acquisitions, Palit and Gainward found themselves under the same management and apparently Palit and Gainward cards are now so similar only a stickers differentiate them. Digit Life tests the 6800GS, the X1600Pro and the 7600GT. Surprisingly good products with some very nice touches like a Zalman cooler.

Hothardware tests three motherboards from DFI, Asus and ECS, all three being based on the Xpress 1600, the renamed Xpress 200. All three boards have their own hot and not points. The DFI is expensive and uses the SB450 south bridge although it is a LanParty model - you can expect more than decent performance from it. The ultra-cheap-but-slightly-buggy Asus and the ECS fare better it seems with very affordable prices and good performance to match.

Vnunet reports on the Terratec Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS. It is expensive roughly thrice the price of the MSI TV tuner we saw a few weeks ago. The Cinergy is a hybrid analogue/digital tuner, comes with an aerial connection and some more accessories. It uses Cyberlink Power Cinema 4 home theater application. What sets it apart from the rest of the bunch is the AV breakout cable and the DVD burning software that is bundled with it.

Another motherboard offering compatibility with the Core Duo platform is the £110 Asus N4L-VM DH. VM normally indicated that it is a value board - AFAIR - but this one is slightly different. It is a mATX model with Dolby and ViiV certification as well as being MCE compatible. Unlike the above, the board is based on the 945GM chipset which gives it DX9.0 integrated graphics - although grossly underpowered when compared to others. DVI is only optional but you still have GbE LAN, eSATA and much more. A treat for the eye and the pocket.

Pureoverclock tests the dual 1GB DDR memory modules from Corsair, Mushkin and OCZ; the XMS 4400 Pro TwinX, the XP 4400 and the PC4000 EB platinum. Apart from the fact that you can benefit greatly from having 2GB memory in your system -especially if you are a gamer with high performance cards - it looks like DDR memory will have a great year in 2006. The Mushkin XP4000 is cheap and offers decent performance but the Corsair with its heatspreader and funky LEDs get the gong of the day with the highest price as well.

Neoseeker reviews the Corsair Twin2X 1024-8500 memory modules. Funky colours on the black heat spreaders and PC2-8500 rating make the model a highly desirable one. Is it the right memory module for you. The answer is yes and no. It depends on whether you have enough money to buy it. But as we are moving towards PC2-10000 slowly, this Corsair XMS2 will prove to be the perfect springboard for performance enhanced system. Just make sure that you have the right platform for it. µ