Overclocking AMD’s RV670

MOST USERS aren’t made of money, enthusiasts excepted.

Getting the most of your graphics card can really make a difference. The 55nm process on the RV670 is a big help when it comes to performing at not-so-high temps. To test the core, Digit Life did a general overclocking test of the mainstream and low-end cards on the DAAMIT side of things. Lots of pics, graphs, numbers and specs for you to spend your evening on... read on.

We’ll be honest, in spite of our vast knowledge we aren’t all-knowing and all-encompassing, and some brands do tip up that we’ve never heard before. Here’s one that we hadn’t heard before: Starex. This memory packager is putting out some decent DDR3-1066 DIMMs that overclock to 1260MHz at 8-8-8-23 memory timings. That’s about 134 €urobucks for 2GB (but our Danish isn’t what it used to be we could be wrongish). Danish here, English here.

Nesteq isn’t the first name that springs to mind when you talk about PSUs, but they’re up and about seeding their kit. OCIA got a sample of their ECS 7001, 700Watt PSU. It sports a >86 per cent efficiency rating and has enough PCIe connectors to power 4 graphics cards – although Frank considers 700W isn’t enough for a full Quad-SLI setup. The cabling, however, is fully modular and customisable, with enough length for big rigs. It’s also sub-$200 which is quite a catch. Read the rave here.

When you’re building an HTPC system, you try and make it blend into its surrounding environment – usually a living room. Sunbeamtech, however, has build an acrylic HTPC case, and handed one over to Mikhailtech. We really don’t know why you’d want something that glows hard in the dark as a HTPC, but it’s definitely worth looking at. Read the review here.

XBit-Labs waves around Xigmatek’s Battle-Axe VD964 and Auras’ Fridge VGA coolers. These target high-end graphics cards and use “direct touch heat pipe” technology. Xigmatek’s does look like a battle-axe. Auras’ does look like those cooling grids you find on the back of old fridges. They seem very efficient, but they do come with a cost – noise and real estate. Cool your CPUs here.

Bit-Tech took an Asus P5K Pro for a spin. It’s a P35-based mobo with some serious CrossFire issues, but apart from that, it’s stability, performance and value are great, apparently. It goes for under £80, which is quite a feat for an Asus P35. Remember, avoid CrossFire (and dual card setups in general, as the second PCIe slot is only 4x). Read Bit-Tech’s review here.

French site TT-Hardware rounded-up a small herd of P35 mobos from Asus, Gigabyte and Foxconn – these are essentially very similar builds in both quality and performance, but you might notice some missing features here and there. Oddly, Asus comes last. Care to find out which one gets gold? Français, ici. English, here.