Consider the ineffability of cheap hardware, here

It will probably be greeted with a sigh of relief. nVidia has finally released an AGP version of the Geforce 6600GT. XFX is the first one past the post and the only one currently available in the US. Gameve is selling it for only $218 which is still more expensive than its PCI-e version or the X700Pro; the price though is set to go down as demand and supply pick up.

But for those who just want to buy a new compatible AGP graphics card, this is the one. Performance for an AGP card is nothing short of being breathtaking, especially at that price. And we are sure that ATI will very soon follow suit if they do not want nVidia to capture a sizeable chunk of the still-important AGP market. The card is build around a nice blue PCB with two DVI ports and one TV out. The HSF fan is fairly large and slightly slant and covers the GPU and not the memory modules. Note that like the 6800 series, this card does seem to need an additional power input, although there seems to be a slight mixup between models on XFX's site and Gameve.

The 6600GT comes with 128MB 128-bit DDR3 memory running at 1GHz. The GPU core, clocked at 500MHz, can churn up to 4 billion texels per second and 375 million vertices in the same time. Competition though is looming with Albatron having already released 6600GT cards. Next in the wings? Overclocked 6600Ultra cards. Anandtech, which had the first review of the card did not overclock it as one would have thought.

Even then, the 6600GT managed to trounce one of our favourites, the 5900XT without much effort and would very easily match the 5950 ultra, Nvidia's ex-champion as well as leave ATI's 9800XT well behind. FYI, HardOCP managed a respectable 560/1200MHz overclock. Not bad at all. Over to Anandtech for their last word - "For the first time in recent history our GPU recommendation is clear: the best bang for your AGP buck is none other than the GeForce 6600GT."

UK
Our local Tesco - Bromley By Bow Cor Blimey Luv A Duck Dot Com - is selling a 4MP digital camera for only £49.99. Check to see if it is available at your place. The Vivicam 3815 produces fairly good pictures as you can see here. The maximum resolution capable is a 2304x1728 - the images are in JPEG format and have three levels if compression. As with many entry level cameras, you don't have any optical zoom but a mere 2x digital one. But the vivitar cam provides you with seven photographic modes. Also worth mentionning is the video recording capabilities. Although the latter comes without audio, it can record as long as there is available memory, in a MPEG-1, similar to the once popular VCD format.

After recording, you can outpu the images or the live recorder to your monitor or your monitor via the appropriate output connections or via the camera's 1.4in TFT LCD screen. The camera comes with 14MB internal non volatile flash memory as well as a SD slot capable of accepting 1GB SD cards. Software and accessories included are Photosuite SE, Photovista, USB cable, carry pouch and batteries. This camera are meant to replace the usual throw-after-use entry level point and click which do not provide with a fraction of the Vivicam 3815 functionalities. Plus with prices of 6inx4in printouts at an all-time low - £17 for 100 prints on high street, digital camera has finally succeded in conquering the mass market. Buy it while you can.

Singapore
Videopro is selling an All-in-one printer for a bargain price of only S$99, around £30+VAT. The Lexmark X75 Printrio is an entry level printer that is destined for the casual printer - stay clear from that printer if you want to print more than ten pages per days. The low price though hides the fact that its consumables costs are far from being negligible. The X75 is barely larger than a normal printer and yet allows you to print, copy, fax and scan. It can print up to 9 draft black copies or four draft colour prints per minutes.

The flatbed sscanner has a resolution of 600x1200 at 48-bit colour. The printer connects to the computer via a USB port and setup - hardware and software is quite easy according to reviews online. Software includes an OCR and a fax utility to scan and send documents via any analog modem present.

The costs of consummables, especially the three-in-one colour cartridges will quickly add up and will offset any initial savings that you will have made. Moreover, the poor print quality itself means that the X75 is more at ease at home rather than in an office.