MacBook Air SSD upgrade of the day

ANANDTECH IS GOING after the first Macbook Air aftermarket upgrade we've seen so far – a 128GB SSD one.

This upgrade for the Macbook Air includes an updated controller to best handle SATA SSD. Swapping out the original factory SSD was simple, benchmarking it against an Hitachi TravelStar, so-so. The SSD systematically drew more power and offered little to no performance gains over the mechanical HDD. The only advantage Anand found was a really responsive system with lightning-fast boot and app loading times. If you’re that crazy about Mac, let it be known that this lil' upgrade will set you back a wallet bleedin’ $3819... yes, you read it right.

Homemedia.fr is reviewing Leadtek’s Winfast DTV Dongle H. It’s a little something from Leadtek that’s cheap and very useful – as long as you pair it with the right software. It gets pretty technical when the chaps start measuring signal strength on these devices, and comparing Media Center software (although it does come with Vista certification), but it's worth going over if you're in Europe. Read the English version here, and the original here.

Geoff at Tech Report has been reminiscing over the enthusiast hijacking of server and workstation technologies into speedy desktop machines. Case in point, the Xeon 3320 which he's bunging into a desktop system of his own, allowing us to peek at it, at our enthusiast's delight. He took the 2.5GHz processor up to 3.2 on a 435MHz bus, and, what’s odd, the system upped the voltage on the CPU automatically (is this a feature-not-a-bug happening right here?). Well, it’s a free overclock on a workstation-class CPU that you just don’t want to miss. Right here.

RBMods has picked some comb-like DIMMs from Patriot – the Viper PC3-14400 - and tested the heck out of them. Using a QX6700 and MSI X48 mobo, Niko’s tests show the Viper trouncing the ST Project X 1800 and Twin3x 2048, at stock speed. What about overclocking, you ask? Well, Niko gives it a big thumbs up – lifetime warranty and a heavy duty heatsink got you covered... read the review here.

There’s some dual-external HD action going on at Tom’s. Lacie’s 2Big and SimpleTech’s Duo Pro Drive 2 TB offer Terabyte storage with USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces and some reasonable backup software. You know what? Hitachi continues to steal the show when it comes to bundling the drives with these enclosures, that’s what. Lacie’s warranty is pretty good, too – or is it SimpleTech’s that just plain sucks? One year warranty sound medieval. Read it here.

Intel’s near-launch Little Falls ES mini-ITX platform has seen some bench time at VR-Zone. In case you forget, mini-ITX has so far been the domain of fab-u-less VIA and its C3/C7 processors. VR-Zone put it all on video and posted to the site, with the platform drawing just about 32W. We’re sure they’ll get some more stuff online soon, as world+dog is itching to see how this platform performs. View VR-Zone’s video here. µ