Dell's Phenom II XPS system keeps pace

A FEW years back you wouldn't expect to see this Dell using AMD, but now it's a fact of life. Dell's XPS 625 Phenom II gaming system is being reviewed at Hot Hardware. The Phenom II X4 940 at the heart of the system performs quite well says Chris, and can sometimes keep up with more expensive Intel systems.

PC Perps has Enermax's Revolution 85+ 1050w PSU in their lab. The kilowatter kit has a modular design and testing showed up to 91% efficiency, which is just gobsmacking...

Techware Labs is on another Patriot product, the Warp 2 PE128GS25SSDR *cough* SSD. It packs 128GB of speedy flash under the bonnet, of course, which Chris says is one of the fastest SSDs he's ever seen.

Although DDR2 is on the path of extinction, but it's right now that the tech is becoming very fast and very affordable. OCIA has 2x2GB of CSX CEC Series DDR2-800 CL5. It easily OC'd to 1066 speeds...

Overclockers Online plugged a 64GB Patriot Xporter Magnum Flash USB drive into their system. Chunky as it may be, 64GB of zippy flash in your pocket is always useful.

Notebook review is torture-testing a Getac B300 rugged notebook. Mil-spec compliant, you can take this on a trip to the beach... or Afghanistan.

iXBT Labs is lapping an overclocked Phenom II X4 940. Dmitry thinks it's a very rewarding CPU from an overclocking point of view, which is a far cry too from the previous generation Phenoms.

Small Net Builder is having a go at the HP Mini 2140. Apparently disappointment reigned in the lab, as Tim came across serious drawbacks with the kit. Screen and touchpad are no-nos.

Bjorn3D got a Synology DS209+ on the bench. It's a NAS with an attitude, a good one at that, according to Victor. An updated user interface coupled with great performance earned it a Golden Bear.

Asus' 1000HE EeePC is being reviewed at VR Zone. This latest netbook incarnation adds a bit more battery life, despite the marginally faster CPU. Still no good for heavy processing.

ECS' A780GM-A Ultra Black series motherboard is on test at Legit Reviews. This seems to be a great budget board that'll run most AMD processors, and even though Jason couldn't run very tight memory timings, performance was rock solid.

Anandtech is reviewing a full system, the CyberPower Core i7-920. It's a well-equipped system for the $1,499 price tag, but Matt recommends you shop around before diving in.

Cheap, very cheap. Silent. Dead silent. That's what Guru of 3D is looking at today with the HIS Radeon HD 4650 512MB iSilence4, a passively cooled (courtesy of Zalman) graphics card.

A new first-person shooter is always a good excuse to break out the graphics cards and put them through their paces. Legion Hardware is doing it with Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. µ