Gulftown pulls in for a review

POLISH WEBSITE PC Labs somehow managed to score an engineering sample of a Gulftown processor, aka Westmere-EP, aka the 32nm hexa-core brute. Mateusz ran a bunch of benchmarks just to get a first taste of blood. Well, there aren’t any big surprises here, about 50 per cent higher performance on purely CPU-bound apps, and a nice little boost on AES Encryption thanks to Gulftown’s dedicated hardware. Of course, it's more thread-happy.

A new P55 memory kit from OCZ is on display at Tweaktown. The OCZ Platinum Series DDR3 PC3-15000 2x2GB is one of those new manfangled 1.65V units for Intel’s sensitive memory controllers. It isn’t expensive despite the “Platinum” label on them, and in the end it’s meant to plug in and play, not really overclock.

The uniquely shaped NZXT Gamma mid-tower computer case brings with it a low price tag but some nice features targeting overclockers, modders and gamers on a tight budget. On show at Benchmark Reviews.

PC World Denmark has a treatise on SSDs. It’s an SSD 101 class for those of you considering your next upgrade. Mind you, Google replaced Kroner for dollars so the pricing is a bit dodgy.

As NAS go, the Seagate Black Armor is arguably one of the most consumery  types around. The company has now released the Black Armor 110, Gigabit-networked, single drive, 1TB kit with a glossy piano finish, perfect for fingerprinting. Test Freaks has a test.

Xbit Labs does some testing on Samsung’s Touch of Color series of LCDs. There are seven new LCDs in all, and the LED-based backlighting. Oleg’s really fallen for the XL 2370, the Rolls-Royce of the Samsung line-up. The thinness of the screen is not without its caveats, though.

Dirt-cheap CPUs with a bite, is what AMD is betting the farm on, right now. Lost Circuits has the Athlon II X3 435 and the X2 240e processors on test. The prior is a 2.9GHz three-core CPU and the latter the power-efficient 2.8GHz 45W dual-core. The 240e looks like a power-efficient champ.

iXBTLabs takes a look into performance and processor features, in other words, what features make your CPU tick better under certain tasks. Does give a lot of perspective on CPUs, this one does.

Thrusted Reviews tests the brand spanking new Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch Graphics Tablet. Wacom has basically added multitouch (that is, use your fingers) to its “traditional” graphics tablet and slapped Windows 7 stickers on the box. Could be good for your toddler’s finger painting.

Tom’s Hardware’s running its ongoing “Best gaming CPU” feature for the month of November. The feature breaks CPUs into four categories - from the cheapo $50~$90 models to the $200+ powerhouses, you’ve got them all there. Good for your Yule build.