Foxconn's Intel SLI is better than the family, stone me

MOTHER BOARDS.ORG reviews the now-popular Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 motherboard. Asrock is/was a subsidiary of Asus which seems to be quickly acquiring a life of its own to such an extent that Asus is not seeing it as a potent competitor. The 939 is based on the ALI 1695 and should be high on your list if you are looking for a cheap, stable, performing and upgradeable component.

Another company which will probably give some goose bumps to Asus et Al. is Foxconn is now aiming at the high end with the new Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2 according to Sysopt. This Intel SLI solution comes with ten USB 2.0 ports, six SATA and four ATA connectors as well as Firewire 800 support, two GbE Ethernet port plus 8-channel codec. Nothing less - high end performance for mid tier price; including extensive BIOS options.

The AMCC/3Ware 9550SX-4LP SATA-II controller is tested at Gamepc.com. With Native SATA2-300 support, DDR2 400 cache memory, a Power PC CPU and NCQ support, 3Ware is clearly aiming high, very high. GamePC tested it agains two Areca models and one from Broadcom. While very exciting on paper, the 9550SX does not live up to expectations especially on performance and stability.

Xbitlabs checks the Corsair Twin2X1024-8000UL memory module, another memory solution that went well beyond the 1GHz barrier and designed for high frequency. Superior performance across the line, no compatibility issues but higher prices and higher voltage required. Definitely your top choice for memory.

HKEPC posts an equation - XT = SE or XT = LE - as they test the new Colorful Radeon X550XT and the Inno3D 6800XT. While the article is in Chinese, it seems that they are questionning the viability of trying to confuse customers over suffixes and prefixes as well as the use of incoherent model numbers. Even with a slower GPU speed, the 6600LE clearly overtakes the X550XT while it is a draw between the 6800XT and the X800GT with the former core speed trailing the latter by nearly 39%.

Clubic has published its own article on the http://www.clubic.com/article-22620-1-le-multi-vpu-par-ati-ati-crossfire.htmlCrossfire technology from ATI. The French article dissects the two components which makes the platform - the chipset and the graphic card. Crossfire is more flexible than SLI - you can use different GPU and different manufacturers. But the technology is still marred with significant problems as you can read there. µ