DFI's latest motherboard gutted

CHINESE WEBSITE Coolaler reviewed the DFI Lan Party UT NF590SLI M2R/G motherboard which marks the return of the hooded gamer on the box cover. It is in Chinese but the photos are worth it and Google is always at hand. For some reasons, DFI chose to put the SATA and PATA ports parallel to the motherboard plane. The chipset is cooled by a copper HSF and the board itself has two GbE LAN ports and they managed to overclock an Athlon 3000+ to more than 3GHz.

Hardcoreware.net tests the Gigabyte S3 Series motherboards for the Core2 Duo. You get two models, one based on the cheaper 945p and the other on the 965p chipset. They are back-to-basics without too many overwhelming features, which is great as you can focus on the core ones, like durability and price. The 945P is a particularly good overclocker for the money. It has no RAID per se and the onboard sound is dodgy but you wouldn't complain too much. The more expensive 965P model adds in a few bits and pieces.

Aussie website Techdomain reports on the Sunbeam Tech Silent Storm Case which packs 10 drive bays, an acrylic side window and screwless, tool free installation. It comes without a PSU and has a door to hide all the external drives. To be honest, it is not the most stunning case I've seen. It has loads of space inside and is fairly well cooled, with a 120mm fan. Incidentally, the reviewer actually purchased the case for its own use and did a very good job in his account.

Gruntville checks the Alphashield Personal firewall and contrary to initial belief, this is a hardware firewall. It has a number of features that allows it to be superior to other software models like the fact that it is not only OS independent, but does not require any special setup or patching. However, it is not free from shortcomings. Firstly, it lacks VPN support, the configuration tool is basic and most importantly, it supports only 10mbps connections.

The DC95 is on test at BIOSmagazine. We fondly remember its ancestor, the DC10, a white 8mm camcorder a-la-ipod with a lamp. This one is an entry-level model just like its grand-dad and it has some great features like a 25x optical zoom, night mode and image stabilisation. BIOS says that it lacks software but that shouldn't be a fuss. Forgot to tell you that it is a DVD based model. You might not like the menu button as well as the lack of support for removable media and those with a penchant for using camcorders as digital cameras.

Overclockersclub has a guide on how to remove the IHS for Athlon 64 and Opteron. If you are clueless about what an IHS means, it stands for Integrated Heatsink. The whole procedure is fraught with dangers. You can potentially slice your thumb open, wreck a motherboard and render a £100 CPU useless. But that's the fun of it. The results are brilliant though with a 22 degrees fall in temperature registered when a 3500 Venice CPU was under load. A huge difference indeed.