Cheap Intel SLI motherboard on test

TECH REPORT tests the MSI K8N Diamond Plus motherboard; which comes loaded with features such as Dual Gigabit Ethernet LAN, two flavours of SATA RAID as well as a CL Audigy SE chip rather than the usual SB Live. Its BIOS is filled with options that will get many enthusiasts on their feet and watching. It has a few unique features worth considering when choosing a socket 939 mobo.

Another motherboard on test, this time at Anandtech, is the ECS C19-A SLI model. It is excellent but not perfect. It is bsaed on the recently announced nForce4 SLI XE SPP and the XE MCP and it sells for cheap - which is one of the main strengths of ECS. It is stable as long as you don't try to overclock it. You get GbE but no Firewire, a full SATA RAID array, 7.1 Audio thanks to Realtec and SLI compatibility of course.

US based Sysopt compares two drive coolers - the Coolermaster CoolDrive Lite, the Vantec Vortex and the Vortex 2. Cooling your drive supposedly prolonge their life expectancy as well as adding some style to your computer. The Cooldrive lite is the clear winner though as it is not only the cheapest but it also offers best heat and noise reduction as well as the quietest fan.

ITreviews checks the Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook S2110, a Turion based laptop aimed at the corporate market. It is light at 1.9Kg, includes a DVD writer, a 13.3-inch screen, 1GB memory, 100GB hard disk drive, a 1.8GHz processor but no discrete graphic card and certainly no dual core. But you do get a three year international courier return to base warranty, Windows XP Pro and a piece of mind only a tier-1 like FS can provide.

OCmodshop.com examines the Scythe Kama Bay Coolerwhich is a bay cooler, similar to those tested at Sysopt. It comes with dust filter, a silent 120mm fan and a few tricks of its own. It is apparently very silent at only 12dBa but still manages 30 cubic feet of air per minute. Easy to install as well but guess what, there is no real temperature taking, but Scythe is a well known name in cooling and $20 is definitely cheap for the price.

Belgium website Madshrimps tests 17 120mm fans in a big roundup of its own. Now, that's what I call a hall of giants. Equipped with microphones, thermometers and a spreadsheet package, the reviewer tested models from ACRyan, Coolermaster, Spire, Globalwin and Scythe amongst others. No clear winner there as differences are not as important as in the graphic card or CPU segments. µ