Biostar makes comeback with highend mobo

OCMODSHOP.COM reports on the Antec Minuet 300 mATX case. The case strangely looks like an upmarket version of something like the Acer Veriton cases or SFF cases from Dell. This one is clearly better looking, though. It comes with a 220w power supply, USB and firewire ports and three drive bays. It is compatible with mATX motherboards as well as low height expansion cards. There are a few additional accessories. Although it is silvery in colour, it is made up of steel rather than aluminium. Not that expensive either.

Motherboard testing time at Bjorn3D.com. They check the Asus P5N SLI board, built around the nForce 5 570 SLI chipset. Obviously, Asus has added a few tricks of its own inside like the Q-connector, the EZ flash2 and the Crashfree Bios2. Good points include a good price, easy to install and the kind of cachet that you can expect from Asus. But the BIOS is still immature and you can't overclock past 300MHz for some reason. Moreover, nVidia's chipset is a cause for concern as it tends to get hot too quickly.

Trustedreviews put the Dell Latitude D420 - HSDPA laptop to the test. This sub-laptop comes with a blue nipple controller as far a I can see. What sets it apart from others is the integrated HSDPA 3G module. Pop in your SIM and you are on your way out. Sleek, solidly build, with a docking base which includes a DVD writer, its battery life does go to nearly 400 minutes with an extended battery. The price does include a three year onside international warranty which is just what you could expect. Forgot to tell you that you get a 1.2GHz running an Intel Core duo with 1GB RAM and 60GB HDD.

Neoseeker has its review of the ATI Radeon X1959XTX video card. NS reminds us that this is only a refresher of the X1900XTX series. Still it introduces GDDR4 as well as a whole new, integral cooling solution. The card consumes significantly more than a dual GPU 7950GX2 model under load. The price is right and so is the performance, plus you won't have too much driver stability issues. Moreover, you can expect it to be less noisier than nVidia's top of the range models.

PC Modding Malaysia reports on the Biostar TForce 590 SLI Deluxe motherboard. Biostar used to box in the lightweight category, looks like they decided to emulate DFI in an attempt to bolster their bottom line. Good for us and good for them. The board is powered by a top of the range Green team member and is SLI compatible. There's six PCI-xx slots, with four of them from the Express family. Other than that you have two GbE LAN Jack, firewire ports and seven PATA/SATA ports. A steal that overclocks like a beast.

Meanwhile Sysopt writes on the NZXT Apollo Mid-tower case. This model has appeared several times in these columns. It has three 120mm fans to cool the inside, a good looking side window, seven card slot as well as space for ten bays. Sysopt compares it to Coolermaster products which is a compliment. It is cheap, sturdily built and is almost tool free. You might not like the finish and the aluminium paint plus there is no support for full size PCI cards but overall, it is an above average product.

If you want to send in reviews, hardware or software, don't hesitate, just bring them in. I am particularly fond of exotic hardware that you won't find elsewhere. Even if the review is not in English, as long as it is interesting and entertaining. Send it in. Also I would be glad if someone could point me to a recent directory of hardware websites. µ