Passive HD 4850 does the rounds

REMEMBER WHEN the HD 4850 came out? It was hot, real hot. Well Gigabyte has done some cooling magic with a Radeon HD 4850 1GB Passive. It manages to stay cooler than the original reference design, even when in a poorly vented case. That’s one powerful cooler.

Verdis Reviews has a hands-on with the Raptor Gaming K1 Keyboard. This keyboard provides top notch performance and some unique features like Afterglow buttons and button locks.

Hook that keyboard up together with an OCZ Eclipse laser gaming mouse and you’re set for some serious gaming. Better yet, Elite Bastards says it’s dirt cheap.

Real World Labs has a review of the Nexus LOW-7000 CPU cooler. This is a low profile LGA 1366 cooler that keeps your CPU cool while you stuff it inside an HTPC case.

Legit Reviews tests an OCZ Vertex 120GB (v1.1) MLC SSD. A new record-breaking SSD that despite having a nice price tag to it requires some constant maintenance.

Sunbeam’s Acrylic HTPC case is on display at Think Computers. Still no idea why you’d want a translucent glowy thing in your living room but it looks good, if you’re looking for that aquarium look.

The Firing Squad has a nice match for the above case, an Asus Rampage 2 Gene micro-ATX motherboard. Asus went “no compromise” with this board’s features and performance. It should make a very decent LAN party rig.

If you’ve got enough room in the house, and are addicted to racing games, you might want to consider a Speedblack Gaming Platform. Quite literally a platform for sticking your wheel and another for your pedals.

Xbit Labs is testing the NEC Multisync P221W LCD panel. This is a fairly “budget” panel (for NEC) with great viewing angles and good colour reproduction.

Digital Trends has written up an article on the Sony Vaio P. Nick has mixed feelings about the device’s performance despite the SSD and OS trappings. Strong words.

Tech Gage has a Gateway MD7826u 15.6-inch notebook. With a red glossy piano finish, this media centre notebook is chock-full of features and lags only in gaming… what did you expect for $999?

Techspot is looking at the Aten Laptop USB KVM. This is a bit more than a simple KVM device, as it controls data transfer as well as printer and scanner sharing.

Bjorn 3D has some high-grade sticks of DDR3 RAM from OCZ. The Reaper TC DDR3 1866 3x2GB kit is aimed at the Core i7 family and sports the trademark Reaper cooling system. Make sure you have enough clearance on your mobo.

Asrock’s X58 Supercomputer mobo has quickly become a favourite among quad-GPU enthusiasts. This is actually a very affordable yet performing X58 mobo that will play like it is possessed. Virtual Hideout has one.

Tweak Town is looking at Galaxy’s Geforce GTX 285 2GB tri-fan graphics card. Not only will you be able to play GTA4 in all its hi-res glory, but you won’t wake up the neighbours with the card’s fans.

Inside HW has a Dell Vostro A860 on the chopping block. These are very budget lappies, so don’t be surprised about the specs. What do you want for $400?

Tom’s Hardware Store is exploring the now-famous Phenom II X3 720 unlocking “feature”. Bottom-line: don’t go out and buy one just for the unlocking bragging rights.

Hot Hardware did a test on a couple of Gigabyte’s X58 mobos, the EX58-UD3R and EX58-UD4P, that provide the essential foundation for a Core i7 set up. Cheaper than the average X58 mobo, they are. µ