Ilya shows you the real Phenom

PHENOM IS UNDER the scope again, this time at XBit Labs which has published its in-depth review, and we can’t say Ilya was gentle. He doesn’t even see the Black Editions as a part of the solution. Maybe AMD should really take it to the lower-middle segment of the market. However XBit’s numbers are interesting. An unlocked (ie: Black Edition) Phenom at 3GHz will give Intel a run for its money. But if it were that easy to get Phenoms to 3GHz, they’d have launched that part from the get go...

Back in the daze, Diamond was one of the first ever graphics card vendors to market the Riva TNT (calling it the Viper V550) – this was the first graphics architecture to break 3DFx’s domination in graphics. Nowadays, Diamond is strictly an ATI business, and has launched the Diamond XtremeTV HDTV 110 Hybrid TV Tuner USB 2.0. Down at OverClockers Club, Dan, takes control of the remote and tunes in the channels. His take? HD good, Analogue bad. Find Dan and his couchpotato action here.

Extremetech plugs a massive Noctua NH-U12P Cooler into their rig and pits it against their resident champion, the Rosewill RCX-Z775-SL and the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. At the end of the test there’s no doubt left in their mind: out with the Rosewill in with the Noctua. Price might be an issue for some consumers, but like they say, if you’re a performance junkie you need all the cooling you can get. Oh, the cooler will run on AMD and Intel sockets alike, so it’s basically fair game for both sides.

HardwareLogic also delves in the cooler scene with a couple of units from GlacialTech, the Igloo 5610 in Silent and PWM versions. They’re quite lightweight compared to some of the kit out there, being really at the strawweight of the weight categories. They score the kit surprisingly well for that small a unit – and it’s not at all expensive.

TechARP is at it again. This time they’ve built up their Workstation Graphics Card Comparison Guide (Rev 5.1). It covers over 100 workstation graphics cards including the elderly Fire GL 1 Pro all the way up to the Quadro FX 5600. If you’re into CAD/CAE and are looking to buy one of these new or on eBay, it’s a pretty handy tool.

Techgage has audio delight in store for you. They got to review the Ultrasone HFI-700, a little-known German brand out to conquer the American market. Rory at Techgage never heard of them before but we guess, after reading his review, he’ll be “hearing” them a lot more often. He really found no real bones to pick with the HFI-700 and recognizes they deliver on their performance promise. µ