Two dozen identical 9600GTs tested

DO IDENTICAL CARDS PERFORM IDENTICALLY? That's what AMDZone is trying to find out. Chris picked up 24 XFX 9600GT (PVT96GYDF4) cards and put them through identical benchmarking procedures. Remember, these are supposed to be the same in every aspect, as they are retail kit. In the end, you’ll see that not all identical cards are created equal (although all accomplish their default tasks). Although most overclocked admirably well (about 20%), one-in-eight hit a 708MHz ceiling, pity they didn't look under the bonnet at the steppings. First time someone’s done this, we think.

Looking for a 100% silent PSU? Anandtech is looking at a Silverstone kit called (oddly enough) the Nightjar. Well, the Nightjar is rated to 450W (80plus certified) and has holes everywhere for airflow. You get a single 6/8 pin PEG connector so you can use a decent graphics card on this one, but lots of other power plugs for all your needs. It’s good, but it’s expensive, about €140 and again, it’s completely silent. Read the review.

Tom’s Shardware got hold of a bunch (11) of P45 mobos and did a big ol’ roundup. Nothing remarkable apart from being a 54-page article and taking about as much time to read as every other article we’ve read today… combined. P45 seems to be on the right track for the mainstream market, and even some enthusiast mobos. ECS and MSI got some interesting parts out there, it seems.

If you hop on planes often and get the shakes just on account of not having internet access, CrunchGear reviewed Aircell’s Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service. It’s still taking off (pun intended), and Peter wanted to have a real-live go at it. He was impressed with the bandwidth available, but Aircell’s big brother-like controllers jammed his VoIP. You pay 13 buckaroos for the in-flight service, but that might just be adequate for those that need an internet connection on-board. Peter’s got video and audio on the matter, right here.

Thrusted Reviews is inspecting the Samsung Omnia i900. This is supposed to be Samsung first real attempt at fighting off the iPhone 3G. It does a decent job at it, except when it comes to text entry, says Jonathan. It uses WiMo 6.1, and so the interface is still fairly standardized. He did like the internet experience, digital camera quality and GPS – that’s why it’s got such a high features score. Read about it here.

While attending the Leipzig Gaming Convention, PC Games Hardware had some time for a hands-on (or ears-on?) review of the Roccat Kave headset. This is a 5.1 high-end headset with a cushioned earcup format that insulates from background noise and has a control unit that allows you to fine-tune the output of each channel or just the master volume. No word on pricing, though. Read about it, here.

Asus’ TOP dog GTX280 card is on review at TweakTown. You won’t care much about the card’s setup, except the way it’s overclocked out of the box. As a TOP card it’s overclocked to 670MHz/1460MHz/2430MHz (core, shader, memory), and that’s some serious overclocking. It manages to crush all its single-core siblings, but Shane didn’t include any ATI cards in the comparison… He’s pretty much made up his mind: it’s the fastest (single-core) card out there. Read on. µ