Turion X2 fails to impress

BLEGIAN SITE Matbe is the first with the review of the AMD Turion 64 x2 processor, with an all important new socket, the S1 and the DDR2 memory support. One has to wonder whether AMD is choosing the right route as Athlon 64 X2 with the same TDP are already in the pipeline. The Turion 64 x2 is behind the Core Duo in most benchmarks even in gaming. The reasons explaining that range from the effect of DDR2 memory, the smallish cache and the fact that the Turion is not even an improved K8.

Sysopt reviews four hard disk drives from four different manufacturers, all of which support SATA interface as well as 8MB cache. On top of that their capacity oscillate between 250 and 320GB. More than enough for most tasks. There's actually two winners. The Seagate model and the Caviar one are excellent with five year warranty and superior performance. They are more expensive than the IBM and Samsung one but they do offer more capacity as well.

Anandtech tests an updated version of the BFG PhysX accelerator board. The choice of gaims is rather limited with more to come though, later. One of the problems that Anandtech attempted to resolve was the problem that a completely new component caused when benchmarking is concerned. There's a few theories explored in the article, but at the end of the day, Anandtech does not recommend buying a new Physx card right now. After all, we don't like to be Guinea pigs.

Techreport has a roundup of Budget graphic cards under $80. Heck, even the S3 Chrome S27 is included in there. The other contenders are the Geforce 7300GS and the X1300 Pro. As always, you can expect the cards to have ordinary heat sink fans, covering only the GPU. The S27 is just not good enough, and at the end of the day, the X1300 Pro wins the day. Still, if you can afford to look around, midrange 6600 or X700 can be had for similar prices.

Mamma mia, Italian based website, HardwareUpgrade tests the XPC M1000 which is a media centre with all the subtilities that it implies. It uses a Pentium M processor and has a black finish. The casing of the M1000 itself is quite different from the cubic format of the other Shuttle barebone. This one is like a Hifi component. You will even find a full array of connections, including Component video out as well as a wireless keyboard with an integrated trackball and two TV tuners.

Overclocked inside has a deep look at the Asrock 939SLI32 eSATA2 motherboard. It is a socket 939 model with the M1695 chipset. We have already reviewed it in the past. It offers three PCI and three PCI express slots. Other notable features include six channel audio, loads of USB ports but only one GbE Lan. It is very cheap and SLI compatibility via the ULI chipset means that it is a desirable model. OC.de achieved overclocked their Venice AMD using a 300MHz FSB. µ