HD 5850 gets a Toxic Edition

SAPPHIRE’S NOTORIOUS Toxic Edition cards have had the HD 5850 added to its ranks. The card boasts a default OC of 40MHz (core) and 125MHz (memory) yet keeps things schtum. Of course this is non-reference in design and comes with a $30~$40 mark up on the standard version. Tweak Town and Hardware Canucks have them on test.

OK, we’ve banged this drum for years now: USB 2.0 is far too slow for external hard drives. Practical, yes. Well-executed? Not by a long shot. Well, USB 3.0 might make us change our mind. Not only do you get SATA 3.0-equivalent bandwidth, but you can still get instant gratification on your “old” SATA drives. Test Freaks has an USB 3.0 HDD enclosure.

PC Perps has a look at a new “Value” series SSD from Kingston, dubbed SSDNow V Series (128GB). Now, this particular V series is 2nd generation and features a new JMicron microcontroller (shame on you for thinking they were goners). It doesn’t make a perfect solution, but it does have the cheapest $/GB on an SSD yet.

A sure sign that SSDs are becoming a bit more affordable is this article at Hardware Secrets, a 64GB SSD six-way shootout which faces-off some new kit with the Intel record-holder.

G.Skill’s new Falcon II SSD is playing at Fudzilla’s. The SSD not only seems to be fairly cheap (for an SSD), but also a high performer. SSDs are really begging for SATA III, wethinks.

Benchmark Reviews brings us a Core i5-661 er, review. The Clarkdale-based CPU is an easy overclocker, but that comes at a price - your power bill. The power consumption surges to almost double on a 40 per cent overclock.

Ion is Nvidia’s answer to the Atom’s anemic graphics performance. It gives users a chance at doing something other than typing on their netbooks, it really does. Legit Reviews takes a look at the Eee PC 1201N dual-core Ion netbook.

If you are in need of some very serious drive performance for your pro apps, you should read the Tom’s Hardware article on the Adaptec MaxIQ. This device adds a twist to your regular RAID 0 HDD setup, by adding SSD caching to the array.

Tweak Town looks at the MSI H55M-ED55 mobo, based on the H55 Express chipset. Targeting the Clarkdale stock of CPUs, this board comes equipped with pretty standard stuff, but a click-of-the-button overclocking utility dubbed OC Genie. Some quirks, but an overall good experience, we guess.

Anandtech helps you pick out the right H55/H57 motherboard for your new Clarkdale rig. This is a two-part article with part one here and part duh here. It kind of makes you wonder why it takes 2 whole articles just to get to a point, particularly when the point is “kinks have been worked out, you should be happy by now”.

Tweaknews has a test of the Gelid Tranquillo CPU cooler. While this may not be your first choice of brand for enthusiast-class cooling, you should take a look at just what’s on the table: cheap, powerful, quiet and with a 5-year warranty. Not bad, eh? µ