Catalyst for Vista dissected

AFTER A SMALL BREAK, 3D Professor is back. This time around he tested two motherboards from MSI, the 975XPlatinum PowerUp Edition and 965 Platinum Edition motherboards. What is interesting are the results in the HD Tach hard disk benchmark, we have not seen speeds this fast from Intel Southbridge. They had to put something in the water over in Santa Clara.

Thomas over at OptSys reviewed a power supply with an interesting name, to say the least. Antec's EarthWatt 500W proved to be an interesting bling-bling-loaded PSU which could fare much better in terms of price-performance if those bling-bling add-ons were kept for higher-end models than this.

We have already linked the Legit Hardware review of XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320MB, but now guys are giving it away for free as their Forum Giveaway for February 2007. If you want some free hardware that packs the DX10 punch, make an effort and contribute a bit.

Virtual Hideout had a spike in the number of Silverstone products reviewed, building an HTPC machine using SG01 Evolution case, NT-06 cooler and Element 500W PSU. We will be bringing you our own view of the case and cooler tomorrow.

When it comes to cooling, XSReviews put NoiseBlocker Coolscraper v2.0 to the test. We have been using Noiseblocker's 92mm and 120mm fans for years and have to say, they are the least noisy out there, and noe was problematic. This CPU cooler is no different - silent operation is guaranteed. However, it did show some vibrations.

BCCHardware reviewed Artic Cooling Accelero X2, video card cooler that cooled down hot X1900GT board by almost 20degC in full load.

IT-Review took a funny look at OCZ's ProXstream 1000W power supply. We'll post a review next week, since yours truly suffered a dead D975XBX2 "Bad Axe 2" motherboard and that was the last semi-decent S775 board in the Lab. After sorting out this setback, we'll give you our views on it as well.

PC Perspective took a look at ATI's Vista driver and posted some updates about the upcoming releases and new features, such as new Multi-Sample Adaptive Anti-Aliasing (Adaptive MSAA) or OpenGL CrossFire support.

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