Mammoth 15K SCSI hard disk tested

PC MAGAZINE the Overdrive SLI system for us. This Rolls Royce of computer systems costs a cool $6500 but boasts several high end components that justify the price such as two overclocked nVidia 6800 Ultra, an overclocked FX 55 and two WD Raptor Drives as well as a 22-inch CRT monitor.

SL Central tries its hand at the Ultra X-Connect 500W Titanium PSU. Some readers have criticized PSU reviews underlying the fact that PSU's are more complicated beasts than one would think off. Sure lights, shiny finish and connections do count. But nothing beats the quality and stability of the power delivered.

Hothardware has yet another review of the dual core Intel EE 840, that number was used not so long ago for one of Intel's chipset. Of course, Intel could not name this chip, 820. Htohardware gives its thumbs up to the processor and the latter is particularly impressive in encoding tests where it gives AMD a real run for its monnies.

Last but not least the Gigabyte Radeon X800 PCI-e card is reviewed. This particular model is quite expensive even if it comes with 256MB. It is passively cooled which is quite a rarity and does overclock a bit. The competition is cheaper though and the passive cooling bit might not save it.

OCworkbench pays tribute to the guys from Asrock via a review of the Asrock 775Dual-915GL mainboard which allows one to control up to five monitors simultaneously. It has basic overclocking features but succeeds to cram everything onto a mATX format. The price in UK in bulk is £33.60. Not bad at all.

Both TBreak and GamePC have tested the latest SFF from Shuttle the socket 939 SN25P which comes with a nForce4 chipset from Nvidia. It would have been interesting to compare the sizes of the original Shuttle SFF to that of its grandson. The SN25P is a bit noisy and a bit too large but then performance as well as competition from others have made it even more difficult for Shuttle to develop a product suiting all tastes. The SN25P is by some extent the best Athlon64 SFF but this can still be improved though.

GD hardware reviews what is probably the penultimate in terms of storage. A pair of 15K Seagate Cheetah 150GB hard disk drives and a 300GB 10K SCSI Cheetah Hard disks. They do give SATA disks a run for their money even if their prices are way beyond the normal user's pocket. Unfortunately, the benchmarks are not elaborate enough to show what makes SCSI so special. No comparison with SATA drives for example. µ