Anand dissects Jasper

THE XBOX 360 refresh has arrived and Anand is showing everyone the ropes. Codenamed Jasper, the new Xbox 360 hardware platform shrank the GPU and put some shiny new NAND Flash onboard while reducing power consumption a fair bit. We guess your chances of not being RROD'ed are a whole lot better. Anand actually takes Charlie's road on this one, speculating a bit about the solder bumps in the GPU and how that might've been the real problem with the console in the first place. Well, at least Microsoft will get you a second (and third, and fourth, and fifth) console if you RROD... No sawn-off GPUs or electron microscopy, here.

Asus is relentless in churning out new EeePCs and the 10.2-inchers seem to be the new spot for the netbook crowd. Big enough for those manly hands of yours, yet still small enough to carry around unhindered. I4U tests the Eee 1002HA and finds it a very capable computer, capable enough for Shane to say he could do without his own laptop (although benchmarking Cinebench R10 seems a bit off the deep end). He's very impressed with the little netbook that can. Read it here.

Sapphire's HD 4650 might not be running Far Cry 2, but Elite Bastards seem to have found the game's sweet spot at 1280x800. Granted, that's no desktop resolution but it's still good enough to enjoy the game if you don't have the dosh to fork out for a higher grade of graphics card. Now if only these were Hybrid Crossfire-enabled... Anyway, Elite Bastards got away with a massive GPU and memory overclock (+160/+190MHz) which gives you the reassurance you're buying into something worthwhile. Read it here.

Testfreaks is looking at the 8.12 Catalyst driver enhancements - now with extra Avivo GPGPU enhancements. According to Kristofer, average framerates are way up, which indicates DAAMIT has been working on those hiccups and stutters that afflicted previous versions of the drivers. It does look like good news all-round with the added bonus of video processing on AVIVO. Take a look, here.

OK, so the mouse turned 40 this week and Driver Heaven is celebrating the thing by reviewing a very unique mouse: the Handshoe. Contrary to what you'd think it isn't a glove-like mouse, but a very curvy one that fits into the palm of your hand. The mouse was developed by the Erasmus University Hospital in Rotterdam and is supposed to be relieve your hand of pressure and strain points. It's big, but Nathan had no problem using it. Like most orthopedic accessories, it carries a high price... €120. Read about it here.

Hot Hardware is playing around with an Evga nforce 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM mobo. The name says it all, actually, SLI galore, plus a bunch of unique Nvidia features. Shane liked it but is a bit gobsmacked by the $300 price tag. We'd just ask why the board is playing catch-up with an aging X38 mobo. Still, there's gold in there somewhere. Find it here.

German site TweakPC is testing the Silicon Power 32GB SLC SSD. No mysteries there. It's a SLC-based unit with a price tag to shock anyone and a very high performance index (under HD Tach at least). TweakPC can't help but notice that there are even more powerful SLC SSDs out there, but this one here seems to earn their respect outright. Here in German, here in Googlenglish.

The 3D Professor has an exclusive look at Supermicro's foray into the Core i7 and X58 setup, with a review of the new X8SAX workstation mobo. This board supports a whopping 24GB of ECC DDR3 (we won't even bother how much that would cost!). This article also includes a face-off between ATI and NV's latest workstation graphics cards, so it is well worth the time spent, if you're a pro graphics user. You can find that article, here. µ