MSI X58M, Core i7 mobo on the cheap

IT WAS JUST a matter of time until one of the Taiwanese players broke rank and did this. Anandtech got a whiff of MSI’s attempt at making a really affordable and compact X58 motherboard, the X58M... and whaddya know? It worked! Gary was quite impressed and looking at the numbers we have to agree. Who wants an Asus GENE when they can have one of these for $100 less? Mighty Mouse indeed!

Looking for a cooling fan for your rig? Take a look at this article at Madshrimps, thirty of the best coolers on the market, all in one massive test. And now the corny punch line... this article really blows.

MSI’s U115 hybrid 10-inch netbook combines the power of a mechanical HDD with the zippyness of an SSD. However, the claimed 10-hour battery life is more like half of that if you’re doing anything mildly demanding. Thrusted has it.

Elite Bastards has the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 in the shop. Using the advanced cooling, Sapphire markets this card at a factory clocked 1GHz, but hardly enough to make it a worthy purchase, when compared with a reference design.

The Gigabyte M61PME-S2P, based on the elderly Geforce 6100 and nForce 430 southbridge chippery supports everything AMD has to offer. Turns out that it might be a good alternative for a cheaper AMD system.

Michael at Phoronix sees just how good a Phenom II X3 710 turns out to be under Linux. Some southbridge problems reared their ugly head under Ubuntu, but otherwise makes a great value processor.

Hardware Canucks rounded up half-a-dozen Geforce GTX 275 cards. MSI’s Frozr edition has an advanced cooling system, but the eVGA GTX 275 FTW delivers the best performance.

OZ Hardware gives you an initiation course in RAID. This is a really decent introductory article if you’re new to RAID setups and want to do your own.

Both Notebook Review and Laptop Magazine got their hands on the Asus EeePC 1008HA “Seashell” netbook. The redesigned EeePC doesn’t disappoint, unless you’re real picky about the battery being integrated.

Tweak Town tests the controversial Antec Open Air case, which basically gives you an opportunity to show off your components while keep the system cooled by a single “big boy” fan. Just beware the dust monster.

Fudzilla’s crew has turned to testing smartphones with touch-based interfaces – you know... the kind of device that might... just *might* challenge an iPhone (well, not really, but they still made a good effort).

Benchmark Reviews is having a go at the Synology Disk Station DS209 Dual-bay SATA NAS. What it has going for it is high throughput, looks and server features. Worth a look.

Finally, Legit Reviews got one of those “DIY” Neutrino netbooks from OCZ. For just $236 (after rebate) it sounds like a good proposal, but you have to provide the storage and memory. Legit went with all OCZ kit and was pretty happy about the outcome (under Windows 7). µ