Core i5 750 as powerful as i7 920

AN ASIAN site has the honour of leading our review roundup, simply because it has the first full review of Intel’s Core i5 processors in the world. We must say, being in the Far East has its advantages, as abiding by NDAs and such apparently is optional. Well, Hardspell (or Inpai, your pick), tested a Core i5 750 processor. Seems Intel has its product line-up a bit up-ended, as the i5 750 goes shoulder to shoulder with the i7 920. So where does the 8xx series come in?

If you fancy retro-looking wireless radios, you know, the kind our grandparents used to listen to, you’ll find this review of the nMediaPC HTPC 8000 case quite up your alley.

Driver Heaven is testing (and retesting) the Intel X-25m 2nd generation SSDs. The new 34nm flash cells blew the floor under previous generation SSD prices due to its cost – yet performance just keeps on going up.

Notebook power bricks can be pretty boring, until, that is, you get a CoolerMaster SNA 95 notebook power adapter. Bjorn 3D tested it, and despite high hopes, there’s more than a little room for change.

You know what’s really funny? When you can’t shake off an NDA and do everything you possibly can to turn out Lynnfield-related numbers. Well, Bit Tech has a roundup of LGA1156 coolers, and they were – of course – tested on a Lynnfield.

Xbit Labs proves that size doesn’t matter, ora t least in Asus’ case, their micro-ATX Rampage Gene II motherboard puts out like the biggest of ‘em.

Tom’s Hardware store is covering the enterprise storage scene with a roundup of 2TB drives. The most interesting aspect is probably Seagate’s oddly rated 5,900rpm drives that deliver some interesting results.

Thecus is synonymous to NAS, nowadays, and they’ve managed to squeeze out another little NAS wonder in the form of the N5500 (5-drive) entry-level enterprise kit. However, some price adjustments are required as you can buy a 7-drive kit cheaper than this one.

Samsung creates little power-saving wonders like the N120 netbook, on review at Notebook Review *cough*. We won’t discuss performance, because as soon as we say “netbook”, you know what to expect, but 8H20min battery life, well, that’s just shocking, innit?

Hardware Secrets dissects the new Lian Li PC-8N Case. It’s aluminum and it isn’t that expensive, which seems to be the company’s main goal, here. Some real-estate issues in the HDD department, but otherwise a winner.

Laptop Mag has a basic guide to notebook optical drives. Granted it isn’t the sort of component that you upgrade often, but Dana gives you the basics on what to look for when buying a new kit.

Legit Reviews took the time to visit QuakeCon 2009. The great thing about it is that you see all kinds of weirdness take place – in this case in the form of case mods. Here are 15 of the best case mods Legit saw at QC’09.

OCZ’s “Turbo” version of the Vertex SSDs has been put to the grindstone at Guru3D. The drives are priced slightly above the standard versions, but then again you pay a premium for the extra performance.

Anandtech has gone the low-power path of underclocking the Phenom II X4 965BE processor. Well, not as much “low power” as overclocking at the lowest voltage possible.

Hexus tests the Novatech Allspark VHP64, a low-power, low-profile box that uses premium components, but Tarinder says the product needs a slight rethink as it’s slightly noisier than the average.

Hillbilly Hardware has a nice comparison of an Athlon 4600+ system versus a hard-to-find Via Nano + Jetway mobo kit. Of course it’s single core vs dual core, 1600MHz vs 2400MHz. But for $135 you get plenty of performance. If only Via put out a dual-core Nano.

Finally, David Kanter at Real World Tech gives us a preview of what’s to come at Hot Chips XXI. Power7 seems to be the big announcement there as IBM will do some presentations on the chip. Check out the forums on this topic and you might have a surprise. µ