Nvidia strikes gold in double whammy

THE GEFORCE 8800 reviews keep coming in thick and fast. Real World Benchmarks has reviewed the XFX 8800 GTS and TweakPC has been testing out its big brother, the XFX 8800 GTX. Unless your German is a lot better than mine you can click the little flag at the top right of the screen to have Google translate the TweakPC review for you.

MVKTech has released the latest version of NiBiTor, its Nvidia BIOS editor, which now also includes support the new GeForce 8800 series of cards, including the option to change its shader clocks, presumably to account for daylight savings time.

Tweaktown has previewed a version of Nvida's other new release, the nForce 680i chipset for Intel Core 2 Duo processors, in this incarnation the Abit IN9 32X-Max. Once the BIOS has been fully developed this new chipset looks ready to rock the world of enthusiasts everywhere by offering incredible overclocking potential.

Tweaktown has also reviewed the ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium/WiFi-AP, which is based on the rather lacklustre nForce 590 SLI chipset. Although the chipset is lacking the board itself does help make up for it by offering a solid design and a good feature set, so if you're not into overclocking and the 680i boards are out of your budget, you may want to have a peek.

IT-review has had a chance to play around with the ultra cool looking Samsung Q1 UMPC and while it certainly takes some getting used to it performs its role superbly. It's not going to replace your desktop or your notebook, but if you're looking for something in between with a heavy multimedia focus, then you've hit the jackpot.

Phoronix has been poking and prodding the Abit AW9D i975X motherboard and scores it at a respectable 8 out of 10. The board comes in a regular and Max variety depending on your needs and budget.

If you think the stock cooler on your graphics card is too loud or too wimpy then Virtual-Hideout has a review you'll want to have a look at, the Vantec IceberQ 6 VGA Cooling Kit.µ

* SEND YOUR hardware news to Ian Williams.