O'clocked 7600GT reaches 715MHz

VR-ZONE MODS the XpertVision 7600GT videocard in a piece that is well worth reading. The XpertVision has a boosted reference clock speed - it is not based on the PCB design from Nvidia. The PCB, the HSF and the design of the card itself are quite different and that's a welcome change. After having modded it expertly - that's expected from VR-zone - the maximum speed they could reach was 715MHz and 830MHz for the core and clock respectively. That's after the memory was hiked up to 1.55v and 2.1v. Not for the faint-hearted .

Tbreak tests the OCZ EL DDR PC4000 2GB Dual Channel Platinum XTC. Yet another review of that near-legendary memory module which now comes with an innovative honeycomb design which allows more direct access to the actual memory chips. What the one-page review shows is that it is a very good memory module - rock stable, etc etc, sweetened by the fact that it carries a lifetime warranty. I don't know the price but you can bet that it is higher than usual cheap memory sticks - but probably worth it if you are into overclocking and overvolting.

TheTechZone visits Freespire which is a free version of Linspire which is itself a candy-version Linux distribution - actually, the article is written by the CEO of Freespire. Freespire is actually more than that as a community driven project which aims at offering the best of Linux and Linspire world. You can find more on Freespire.org and I was somewhat surprised by the amount of information on what seems to be a new distribution. Mind you, Freespire is still in Beta.

Digitalreviews.net checks the ECS KN1 SLI extreme version 1.0a motherboard. As the high end model from ECS, it comes with quite a few goodies like two LAN ports, Firewire, loads of RAIDed SATA and PATA connectors and much more. It does support SLI thanks to the SLI Nvidia chipset and comes with a decent set of features and accessories. The price is right and definitely within reach of the public it is aimed at. There's no direct comparison with other motherboards, but from theoretical experience, I know that it is a good board.

The AMD Sempron 3400+ processor is on test at Ultimate Hardware. Palermo core, 90nm, 256Kb cache and a 2GHz real speed. Not bad at all. It is compared to an Athlon 3400+ which is 400MHz faster and has a 512Kb cache as well as a 3000+ Athlon. Quite a few interesting benchmarks which all point to the same direction. The Sempron 3400+ comes very close to the Athlon 3000+ although in games, the 3000+ and its 1.8GHz was too much for the 2GHz Sempron processor. In conclusion, cache counts when it comes to games.

Bjorn3D reviews the Antek Take 4 which is a 4U Rackmounted Enclosure. It won a seal of approval from Bjorn3D, which means that it is not that bad at all. The casing comes with quite a few accessories - cord organisers, system speakers, IO shield and even keys. It is very well designed, has an excellent cooling performance and is very quiet to operate. There is also that attention to detail that sets it apart from the competition. It is not cheap mind you - quality comes at a price but you almost certainly won't end up pulling out your hairs by one. µ