The Xbox faces off against the PC

THERE'S A face off between the PC and the new Xbox 360 console over at Firingsquad. Not a real review, but rather a bright discussion between two bright persons who know their subject. There are digressions from time to time but I am sure that you'll find the whole thing as entertaining as I did. Especially interesting was the bit on how Microsoft and the Xbox made Nvidia what they are today.

Let's start with a mini interview of the Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2 motherboard which makes SLI on Intel's platform a welcomed reality. The review is in chinese but you should easily understand what's going on. The board aims at the high end market so it includes Azalia HD quality sound, SLI features, Firewire, GbE ethernet and four DDR sockets. There are some benchmarks but they seems to be somewhat low for SLI 7800GTX isn't it. Less than 10K under 3DMark 05. Surely can do better.

PCperspective looks at a sure winner. The Asus A8R-MVP XPress Crossfire edition which is one of the few to offer ATI's Crossfire with ULI's south bridge therefore solving USB nagging problems. Unlike most Crossfire motherboards out there, this one is looking for conquer the mainstream market and chances are that it will easily achieve it. It offers surprisingly good overclocking, RAID SATA2, Firewire and USB 2.0 ports. Audio is not fantastic but for a price nearer to $100 thaan £150, ATI can smile again.

MR 6800, meet Mrs X800GTO. Xbitlabs tests the Powercolor X800 GTO VIVO graphics card. Xbitlabs says that the GTO is faster and sometimes much faster than the 6800. But then, the real competition will come from the 6800GS. Now couple it with the fact that it is not overclock friendly, is not SM 3.0 compliant and has no software in the package and you will understand why ATI has a difficult fight on its hand.

VR-zone publishes a simple guide to setting up your own Wireless home network. They use SMC equipment for this guide and of course, there's nothing that guarantees that what they write is going to apply to your own router and equipment. Believe me or not, some network peripherals are not as easy to setup as they should be. SMC is a low cost contender but how it compares to the like of Orico/Safecom or Belkin in terms of ease of installation is something that needs to be seen.

Twenty-six power supply units are being tested in a mega round up by Belgium website Matbe. The PSU's come from Antec, Asus - didn't know they make PSUs, Coolermaster, Enermax, Fortron and much much more. It is probably the most detailed PSU article ever made. 53 pages are well worth the read even if you try to translate it. Strangely, they start with the ones not to buy and conclude by the ones to buy: Fortron, Antec, Seasonic and Enermax are on the shortlist.