Twenty games tested on two budget graphics cards

YOU MIGHT CONSIDER gaming on an HD 3650 absolute crap, and rightly so, ‘cos you’re probably gaming at very high resolutions the HD 3650 wasn’t built to withstand. However, the rest of mankind is likely to be still gaming at reasonably lower resolutions and/or have a limited budget to play around with. Well, Hardspell put together a list of 20 games played on an “old” 8600GT and on the “new” HD 3650... you can draw some interesting conclusions here, as lower-res gaming seems to blur the difference between the cards. The HD 3650 does, however, offer a higher entertainment factor thanks to the HD decoding in the GPU.

Some online etailers like GeekStuff4U are probing around with interesting kit like this DIY SSD drive. This is a PCB with a SATA controller to which you get to slot in up to 3 CF cards. It doesn’t say who the maker is, or if its 2.5- or 3.5-inch (although it looks 2.5), nor does it say whether the CF cards you stick in it are JBODed or RAIDed together. It does look quite geek-worthy.

Julio at Tech Spot has nabbed some Phenom X3s and put them to the hammer. Given the current state of affairs, product pricing and performance level, the Phenom X3 8650 is what Julio considers to have the most righteous price/performance ratio, although their most feared adversary will actually be the Athlon X2s. How far can the X3 take you? Well, you better give those benchmarks a look, then.

eVGA is getting creative with its accessories. The new eVGA UV Plus+ external USB VGA adapters are under the scope at PC Perspective and it seems like eVGA has struck a winner with this one. USB video adapters usually provide really slow performance with a lot of video tearing going on, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here, according to Ryan. The UV Plus+ comes in two flavours, the 12 and 16 – depending on the DisplayLink controller used. The latter allows for a higher resolution to be output (either widescreen or 4:3). Ryan was pretty positive about the whole experience and you can read why here.

Real World Technologies has recently published their take on the AMG 780G chipset. As the 780G is being marketed as a platform with AMD’s own CPUs, it is quickly gaining momentum. Not only does the 780G offer very high graphics performance (as IGPs go), but it also brings with it some novel features that do offer recognizable value to the end-user. It lays out AMD’s strategy with this chippery for everyone to see.

XBit is looking into Samsung’s dual-display Syncmater 2263DX. It presents itself as a 22-inch LCD with a secondary 7-inch display (called the UbiSync7) attached to it – a sort of master-blaster arrangement. The screen also sports a 0.3MP webcam. You can use the 7-incher to drop tidbits of data like your Photoshop tools or use the SideShow feature in Windows to display info like widgets and such. It should also be interesting as a TV set so you don’t miss out on your favourite space opera whilst working. Freaky, but useful. Read it here.

Big Bruin has a review of Kingston’s HyperX PC2-9200 (ie: 1150MHz) 2x1GB kit. These DIMMs aren’t for everyone, as they draw 2.3-2.35v off your mobo (check your BIOS), but does overclock quite well, according to Jason – although there’s no XMP or EPP extension here. DDR2 has been pushing the limits lately and the price has never been so appetizing – you can buy these for as little as $100 he writes. Interrresting.

CNET has a review of the fruit-themed plastic toy called the Apple iMac – in its 24-inch, 2.8GHz update. Apparently the “minor update” kicks the old one in the groin quite violently, in both single core and dual core mode. The specs are give or take similar, with a minor speed bump in the memory system. This edition also sports a smaller drive than the 2007 edition. Hardware-wise it doesn’t look like a great step forward, but it could be the OS X 10.5.2 that gets better output from the multiple cores and multimedia tasking. Who knows? It is an Apple computer after all... yours for under $1800. Check it out here. µ