Emtec's PC-less Photocube stocks 80GB

WHEN IS A CUBE NOT A CUBE? When it’s a PhotoCube. Emtec has a spiffy little device called the PhotoCube 80GB, and it’s on test today at Hartware.de. It’s a memory card backup device, the size of a chubby 2.5-inch HDD, and you plug in memory cards and with a mere pressing of the button copy the contents of the card onto the HDD. You needn’t connect it to the PC, so it’s great to take on vacation. The concept isn’t new; we’ve seen a Sitecom device doing the same a few years ago, although at that time, 2.5-inch HDDs were at a premium. Now, it’s just what you need before going on vacation. Read the original hier, and Googlenglish here.

Sapphire’s micro-ATX RS780G Hybrid Crossfire mobo has made it to the pages of Hexus.net. Michael’s all-seeing eye is detecting some odd design choices on the mobo (like an 8-pin CPU connector), and the RAM slots being really close to the CPU socket. Apart from that it’s a well-rounded mobo, he thinks. You’re stuck on an AMD processor, but you’ll get by if all you want to have is a media/office PC. Gaming will require you slot in a decent graphics card, possibly even a low-low-end HD3450 to take advantage of Hybrid Crossfire. Look at this way, it’s a cheap way to get a good performing rig. If you want *good*, that is. Look at it over here.

We’ll admit it. We’ve never heard of these chaps before: “Moneual Lab” (pr eviously known as Ahanix, it seems). They are in the HTPC case business and their MonCaso 932B (Silver) is making its debut at OCIA. Contrary to most HTPC designs, this case will allow you to install a full ATX mobo. It also sports a 7-inch touchscreen LCD in the front bezel, that will need a second DVI output from your graphics card. No included fans, though, and that’s something you’d expect right off the bat with an HTPC case… Read the dirty details, here.

Hardware Secrets wrote a guide to “All you need to know about dual channel”, and by that they mean RAM. It starts off with the premise that memory is crap and it slows down your CPU (while the CPU is waiting for data to come and go to RAM) – then it goes on to explain a bit more about how to slot DIMMs correctly and how make sure it’s working right. If you’re new to this, it’ll help you to avoid some of the pitfalls of memory configuration. Commit this to memory, please.

Nate at Legit Reviews is doing a rematch of their previous EPU vs. DES article. Apparently Gigabyte had a word with them regarding the way they tested, ‘cos they were comparing mobos with some differences, the biggest of which was DDR memory type (2 vs. 3). So Nate pulled out a X48-DQ6 and redid the tests. Things didn’t change much from the original article, even though this time things were on a really really level playing field. Get the details, here.

Extremetech is testing Samsung’s latest and greated in the SSD biz. It’s a 64GB SATA-II unit with a greatly improved write performance (about 2.5 times the original Samsung SATA SSDs). The test revealed some odd behaviours with SSD and HD write/read performances, but filtering the crap from the rest, Extremetech got the feeling they had a very good performer on their hands. Now… the price is another matter entirely. Who wants to pay $790 for a 64GB SSD? That’s a bit off the charts, wethinks. Read the review, here. µ