OCZ Gold LV kit makes a debut

MANY SITES HAVE turned to Core i7-centric testing, including Guru 3D’s review of OCZ’s PC3-12800 Gold Low-voltage Triple Channel kit. Memory vendors, having re-certified everything for Core i7 have as a consequence premiered new triple-channel kits. This particular kit performs well, overclocks better and will basically give you all you need (6GB) to power your Core i7 kit. Expensive, at 300 €urobucks. Read it here.

TBreak is looking at the Sapphire 780G Hybrid Crossfire mini-ATX mobo. It’s a tidy little thing with room for plenty of expansion (if you’re not into real Crossfire). Tareq ran the tests comparing it to two ECS offerings and an Asus. Not a great high-scorer, but it overclocks well and isn’t at all expensive, he says.

Gigabyte is also in the Core i7 game with their EX58-UD5. Techgage has one and is looking at how it adapts to the Core i7. It seems the big G was a bit cleverer than Asus with the PCIe slots, as you can slot in three dual-slot graphics cards. Read it here.

The GTX 260 Core 216 continues to be in the limelight. TechPowerUp is testing the Leadtek GeForce GTX 260 Extreme+, a slightly overclocked but otherwise standard-looking bit of kit. TechPowerUp’s testing shows that it is a very powerful card, which charges ahead of the competitors, sometimes even overtaking the HD 4870 X2. What to make of it? Check it out...

There’s an article on Hardspell (assuming it’s theirs), facing off AMD’s Phenom X3 8650 vs Intel’s E7200 on integrated platforms – 790GX vs. MCP7A. You’ve got very interesting tests that show each platform's pros and cons - from video editing to gaming, to HD playback. Phenom takes the lead...

Swiss site OCaholic has another review to the Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition. It’s a board built for enthusiasts, says the site, but this time it looks like Gigabyte pulled one over on Asus, as the P6T scores repeatedly below its Gigabyte rival, the GA-EX58-UD5. First generation Core i7 mobos... we’re sure there’ll be some serious tweaking in the near future... Catch the article, here.

Driver Heaven picked up on the HD 4550 and HD 4650 (Sapphire versions). These cards, although cheap-ish, tell us you can play most games without breaking the bank. You won’t be doing 1920x1200 all the while, but still, you get decent frames and HD decode ability for next to nothing. They are also highly overclockable, which is OK if you want the feeling of extra value... still it’s a 64-bit memory interface, there’s only so much you can get out of it... Read it here.

OK, this has to be the weirdest device we’ve seen in a while. Hardware Secrets has on test something called the KeyScan KS810 Keyboard Scanner. Yes, a Keyboard with a scanner inside. You stick the sheets portrait-wise at the back and it comes out at the bottom front of the keyboard. Weird. µ