Read the first X1900XT review

TWEAKTOWN must have some fairly good friends at Gigabyte. So much so that they have a (so far!) exclusive review of the ATI X1900XTX. It is actually a huge card running at 650/775MHz core/clock speeds, which is not that high - but comes with 48 shaders. The Gigabyte card uses 1.1ns Samsung GDDR3 memory and it is still a two-slot solution with an Arctic-cooler like cooling solution.

Tweaktown, which is based in Hong Kong also got some images of Crossfired X1900 cards. Read over their review to find out more about performance and how it compares to a X1800XT crossfire configuration. Unfortunately, no Geforce 7800GTX 512MB is included for comparison.

Further X1900XT reviews will undoubtedly swamp us during the day, as the NDAs run out.

Techfear, a newcomer to our column, has a test of the Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT Platinum series matched pair of memory modules. These DDR SDRAM are clocked at 250MHz and come with lifetime warranty. Techfear however was able to oerclock them at 1T up to 290MHz even if they had to put in more voltage. Keith, the reviewer, also did a small close-to-you test which might help overclocking. Worth visiting.

Thanks to the sharp eyes of a reader who pointed out to me that the G5 Quad is actually a dual dual-core as compared to a real Quad-core-on-a-die CPU. He also pointed me to this month old comparison of the G5 quad with a Dual 3.6GHz Xeon and a couple of Opterons. Needless to say, the Opterons leave everything else in the dust. But the Apple machine is gorgeous to say the least and its overall value for money is very good - much better than a couple of years ago. The reviewed model came with integrated wireless antenna, DVD writer, 2GB memory, a truckload of software, a Quadro FX 4500 card and 250GB HDD. Even at the asked price tag, you would be hard pressed to get such a well designed and powerful computer.

VR-zone has a test of the Titan Vanessa Heatpipe CPU coolers. There are two coolers tested actually. The L type comes ahead offering superior cooler and low noise as compared tot he S type. The two other coolers being used in the benchmark were the Reference HSF from Intel and the Titan Bianca Water cooler. Benches also included overclocking using the Intel Pentium 670 Prescott core.

Linux-Friendly Phoronix has a go at the Silverstone Strider ST56F. It has an efficiency above 80% which is excellent for a PSU and with dual +12v rails, dual PCI connectors and a 120mm silent running fan - although silent here is something subjective as Mr Larabel points out. Also at 560w maximum output, it is more than enough to cater for most needs. Finally, a piece of advise for phoronix. Guys could you pls change the background colour? The combination of large text paragraph, white on grey text and small font is making my eyes ache at this very monent.

Pro-clockers reviews the Dynatron/AzenX Evo-Jet 2-in-1 heatsink. Even though end users might not know them, Dynatron is one of the largest manufacturers of server coolers, so they do know their business pretty well. The fan itself is pretty good especially when compared to stock cooler. AMD users though may have a tough time with the oval AMD bracket provided. µ