Dreamhack takes us way beyond the tradtional biege box

DREAMHACK WINTER, possibly the world's largest LAN party, is just around the corner and Bit-tech has shown us some of the awesome case modding that will be shown of at the event. Micke's DreamHack Modding Mania shows off some the awesome work being done.

If you don't have the time or resources to pimp your case to that sort of degree, you may want to consider the Apevia X-Discovery, reviewed by XSreviews. With an analogue temperature gauge and plenty of UV blue lighting you're sure to impress your mates, if they're into that sort of thing, without having to break open the piggy bank.

Madshrimps brings us the High End DDR2 Memory Roundup. Comparing the high end memory modules from Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin and Team, it seems that the results make a definite conclusion too close to call, with each kit having its own strengths and weaknesses but all performing extremely well.

Rbmods has reviewed the X-Micro F610 Music Video Player. It is surprisingly small and seems to pack quite a punch with good quality sound and an impressive 262 000 colour OLED display amongst its features.

PC Perspective has been pulling out the multimetre and oscilloscope to bring us the Akasa Power+ 650W Power Supply Review. Not the quietest or most efficient PSU in the Akasa range, but as part of its Performance Series, it is stable and reliable.

For a lot of people the heart of an HTPC is the TV Tuner and finding a good one can be tricky. TweakTown has reviewed Compro VideoMate TV Tuners - T100 Digital and U500 DVB-T, but with ratings of five and seven out of ten respectively you may want to keep on looking.

Bjorn3d has reviewed the VIZO Voyager Hard Drive Cooler, which looks to me like a new sci-fi shuttle design. This design may cause a problem in some cases, but if it does fit then it certainly does an excellent job.

Bjorn3d has also reviewed the HIS X1950Pro IceQ3 Turbo which uses the new Crossfire 2 setup and performs very well indeed. About the only drawback seems to be that is doesn't have support for the upcoming DirectX 10, but it should be a long while yet before that is a serious issue.

Cameralabs has been snapping away with the Olympus E-400 which is purportedly the world's smallest and lightest Digital SLR camera. Fortunately this miniaturisation doesn't seem to have adversely affected the comfort or performance of the camera, scoring a respectable 85%.

BIOS magazine has reviewed the Kingston DataTraveler Secure Privacy Edition, giving it an Editor's Choice winning 9/10. Its titanium coated, waterproof casing and inbuilt 256 bit AES encryption means that your data protected from all forms of adversity. ?

* SEND YOUR hardware news to Ian Williams.