Eee PC the Elder vs. Eee PC the Younger

IN THE WAKE of the Eee PC 900 launch, Laptop Mag has decided to face off Eee PC the Elder, with Eee PC the Younger (the 701). The 900 isn't exactly a budget machine, as it sports a 20GB SSD, throwing economics out the window – having said that, and quoting Jeffrey "Do you want to pay more than half a grand for a notebook that's marketed as a secondary machine when you can get a full-fledged notebook for the same price?". 'Nuff said. Get on your way.

Nvidia is definitely confusing consumers with its product naming – there's no doubt about it. Now you've got the GeForce 9600 GSO which Hilbert at Guru3D points out is nothing more than a rebadged 8800 GS. He's not accusing Nvidia of making that a rather rubbish product, the outcome is a card that performs a little under the current 9600GT (at least in lower res) and sells for under 100 €urobucks. Hilbert fawns a bit, but he just can’t help it.

Enermax’s Modu82+ 625W is on review at PC Perspective. With a modular layout, it supports CrossFireX or SLI, and even comes with 12-pin PCIe power plugs in case GPU manufacturers want to get creative and meltdown your computer. It’s silent as heck, and you get very good mileage... uhm... efficiency out of the PSU, according to Lee. Like he says, this new power supply should interest anyone with an HTPC rig. Catch it here.

Hardware Mag from Germany has rounded-up 12-1TB hard drives and put them to all kinds of tests. It is looking increasingly like mechanical HDs won’t be replaced anytime soon by the SSD kind – at least not if you need to keep ALL your data stored. There plenty-a-gig for you right here – or here, in English.

Matbe has Crucial’s 32GB SSD and SK01 External Kit (2.5-inch adapter case for desktop PCs) under test. The benchmarketing purports to the Raptor vs. SSD face-off, and you can imagine what’s coming – however - Stephane claims the drive is at the top of the SSD pile. The External Kit doubles as hot-swap bay and external drive case, which makes it doubly useful. It’s still outrageously expensive – believe us – you’ll know when it’s not. Français ici, English here.

Another French-language site has a massive 54-cooler roundup. Yes, the be-all end-all of CPU cooling is right here (ooh, English here), we figure. 54. *sigh*. Even Intel’s there. Naturally they are rated on everything from shiny goodness to cooling performance and noise. If you haven’t seen PWM coolers this might be a good opportunity. Take a deep breath and dig in.

with the Hypersonic Avenger AG2, 12-inch notebook. It’s clean, it’s sharp, it looks like something Apple would’ve built right after the first generation Ibooks (maybe Apple cancelled its order at the OEM and Hypersonic picked it up...?). The Avenger comes with a last-generation CPU (2.5GHz Penryn), 4GB o’RAM and even has an optical drive (although not BD). It’s greatest drawback is the crappy (and we think its crappy) 1H40min battery life. Read it here. µ