Nvidia sharpens mainstream swords

TWO OF OUR Far East faves – Hardspell and Expreview - have gotten their mitts on the GS version of the 8800 and run some quickie tests. Expect full disclosure by tomorrow, but right now it’s shaping up to be a bit of a cruel joke on DAAMIT, as the performance and pricing on the 384MB 8800GS seems to hit the HD3850 spot on.

Speedy yet expensive, kind of sums up the current status of DDR3. However the vendors just keep on pouring out the RAM like there’s no tomorrow. Crucial had the Ballistix PC3-12800 (1600MHz) 2x1GB sticks reviewed at Benchmark Reviews. They believe that Crucial will play a big role in bringing DDR3 to the masses. It’s decent at overclocking too. Check it out here.

Laptops aren’t really an upgrader’s market, are they? Something to change your mind –may be the new WD Scorpio 2.5-inch 320GB drive, on review at BigBruin. Or, as they suggest, you might want to do yourself a favour and shove it in your Playstation 3. It’s an instant upgrade at just under $200. It’s cool and it’s quiet and highly recommended.

Bjorn3D has a review on the Ultra ULT40064 X3 1000 Watt PSU. Bjorn's boys think it’s a good buy at $299 and recommend it to anyone needing a high-end power supply to satisfy your SLI and extreme computing needs, it’s also 80 Plus compliant. They weren’t too impressed by the length of the power cables, though. For your megawatt of reading happiness wibble onwards to this place.

We haven’t paid much attention to gaming sites, that’s true. But today we got a glimpse at the Speed-Link Styx gaming mouse at PlayReaction. It’s a highly-programmable 2200dpi laser mouse that won’t break the bank. There’s more than the odd similarity between Stix’s own and some other Logitech products out there... we wonder why?

UK-side, the chaps at XSReviews.co.uk have posted a review to the LANCool Metal Boned K7. Bones aside, it’s essentially a aluminium wrapped steel structure with a very discreet front cover that let’s your LEDs really shine (no pun intended). They loved it to bits, wethinks, and dared call it “technically brilliant”. You be the judge, right here.

OCWorkbench has come up with a review of Intel’s QX9770 running on a Gigabyte (yes, them again) X48 mobo – the GA-X48T-DQ6. It supports everything Intel and ATI have to offer on the chipset side – stuff like 1600MHz FSB, CrossFire X, Silent-Pipe and solid state capacitors. On the software end of business, its BIOS caters to the most extreme of OC-ing needs. Expensive as hell, tho’.

FiringSquad has a review of the Palit 8800GT Super+ 1GB. It’s no reference-designed card, and sports a brand new cooling unit to withstand the heat from the G92 core. It’s gone from single- to dual-slot cooling, by the way. Like some have reported before, there aren’t any measurable advantages on using the 1GB version over standard 512MB versions of the 8800GT cards, but Palit keeps temps down with their cooler, allowing for a modicum of overclocking headroom (some 15 per cent according to the graphs).

Finally, the guys down at OverClock er’s Club drop a bomb with the Sapphire ATOMIC HD3870. Sapphire is first and foremost a purveyor of ATI-based graphics cards and the ATOMIC series promises to offer overclocked, watercooled graphics "solutions". What a wet idea. µ