Mad modder makes muppets of HTPC builders

WITH ALL THE PANACHE the Swedish Chef prepares a plate of Swedish meatballs, the resident Swede (Magnus Persson) at Bit-Tech decided to throw some stuff together and whip up an HTPC case for his fans. We’ve got to hand it to him, he knows what he’s doing. Ladies and Gents, click here for a parade (and a lesson) into HTPC case modding/building – especially the big case builders who seem to be stuck in an endless loop of boring HTPC designs. Who knows there’s a design job in the offering... this guy just makes it look sooo easy.

Michael at Phoronix has been evaluating an Asrock mobo – the A780FullDisplayPort. Yes Asrock has this habit of attaching words (and now sentences) to the end of their mobos’ names. You can figure out what sets this apart from other mobos, and although Asrock is considered to be a budget mobo builder, the mobo performs as other brands. Remember, however, this is a Linux review – and considering that there’s plenty of free media center software on Linux, it should be a candidate for your HTPC box. Read it here.

Sapphire usually takes the alternate path to building everything – graphics cards and mobos alike. They usually come out with the odd feature that really sets them apart from the competition. However, IT Reviews tripped on a Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G micro-ATX mobo that does exactly the opposite. According to IT Reviews, it goes back on HDMI leaving the user stranded with DVI and VGA. It’s what they called a “missed opportunity”. The mobo itself is decent, but you’ll need an DVI-HDMI adapter if you’re to connect it to your big screen LCD-TV. Catch the review here.

Thoughts of Celeron aren’t likely to visit you in your sleep, not unless you’re trying to squeeze a new PC out of a few dollars. Well, Dev Hardware has a review of Intel’s Celeron 420 – 1.6GHz 512Kb 800MHz FSB – which is a stripped-down single-core Conroe (ie: a Conroe-L). The solution for stripped-down cores is overclocking, naturally, which almost doubled the 420’s performance (3.1GHz). It is still, however, a single core CPU, so right now, even though you can squeeze 3.1GHz out of it, it still loses to a “basic” E2140 in multi-CPU benchmarks. Does sound like good value, though. Read on.

3DGameman is populating their site with video reviews instead of text driven ones. Truth be said, and considering this particular review, it does come in handy. Rodney gives you a tour guide of the new Soyo Graphite series 22-inch LCD TV – where you can actually see how the video viewing angles, response time and colour fidelity performs. It *is* a TV. It’ s also a decent LCD for your computer, so you can have your cake and eat it. Only one HDMI plug, though. Rodney gave it a big thumbs up.

Scythe’s Zipang has reached Silent PC Review and they’ve gone bonkers head over heels about it. It’s a low-profile top-down CPU cooler that sports a 140mm fan (very silent) and heatpipe design. The performance is top notch, but Mike thinks they could’ve done better with a bit more space between the fins, as well as dropping the push-pin design. The Zipang is heavy-ish, even though it’s low profile, so push-pins might not have been the best choice. In the end, performance is king, and the Zipang performs very well.

Inside HW has a review of Asus’ P5E64 WS Evolution – WS stands for Workstation, you see, and it comes with an Intel X48 chipset, with dual Gigabit Ethernet, 4 DDR3 slots and Dual RAID, for freaky HD combos. The copper piping and ‘sinks make the board a bit heavy, but in any case, this isn’t for your typical LAN party rig. Now the real shocker is the price - €220 (it should be just shy of $300 in the States). Not bad for a next-gen Asus mobo. Read the review. µ