Gigabyte overclocking tourney frenzy

Daily Rounds X58 mobos violated, abused

GIGABYTE HELD A TOURNAMENT in the US this past weekend to figure out who was the most clever overclocker in the land of the free. Now this isn’t a DIY, BYOC deal. Gigabyte supplied most of the hardware – equal for all participants – and each participant had to choose his own cooling system. Most used Liquid Nitrogen to cool the CPUs but the video cards were another matter entirely. They even managed to fry some expensive X58 mobos. The winner got a Gigabyte sponsorship to attend the World Cup in Taiwan, come September. You might think that’s cool (pun intended), so you might want to waltz on over here.

The forest-dwelling, dike-building, tooth-picking Hardware Canucks are reviewing Sapphire’s HD4850. The GPU’s performance has been the subject of many a review, but the software is still flaky, thinks the author. Current Catalyst drivers + hotfix are still a way away from providing stable/optimized performance, but it isn’t enough to stop droves of manic users from buying them. Dam good, he says.

Anandtech has jumped on the launch of the new Phenoms and reviewed the whole bunch right here. The launch has brought about a spate of re-pricing at AMD to fit in the newcomers, making things a bit more attractive on the retail side. Technically, however, the dynamic duo is less than pleased with the fine print. Comparing to its predecessor with non-“e” branding, the 9350e gives up in performance what it gains in power, and even then it’s fickle. Well, it’s a long story, well worth the read.

Tosh started marketing the U300 a couple of years back as a small, full-featured, notebook packing everything you need for gaming, entertainment and hard work. The original was a bit thick and square, the remake is much sharper - as you can see in InsideHW’s review here – but is slightly lacking in power. Not the best buy, thinks Sasa, but then again it’s only about 700 €urobucks. The U300 series has definitely taken a turn for the cheap.

HardOCP is doing some research on the new RV770’s power figures. They’ve completed their HD 4850 / 4870 review with the stats you can find standalone on this page. We must confess we’re quite surprised with the results: the HD 4870 draws more power than the GTX 280 OC, contrary to the popular wisdom. This’ll make for interesting reading.

Plastic toy jokes aside, we (the PC crowd) have always envied the design and “cool” factor that makes its way into Apple’s peripherals. And the Tech Lounge is reviewing the Apple Wireless Keyboard. Sleek, slim and stunning, we’d say. Brushed aluminium, and custom sized, the keyboard oozes quality and typing goodness (although Max says there’s a learning curve). Under OS X it’s great, under Windows... err... so-and-so... read it here.

Long time no see ... TV cards for the PC. Yeah, those. Again. Tech Power Up picked up a Powercolor TV Wonder 600 (PCIe x1) and put it through its test bench. We don’t pay much attention to TV cards these days, as video streaming has taken the lead, but if you’ve got an HTPC and want some recording done, it’s still a good proposition. The TV Wonder 600 is a hybrid tuner for both DVB-T TV and Radio, FM and analog TV. Get a shot of nostalgia, right here.

Tech Reviews in Old Blighty has a review of the Dutch-engineered Nexus HOC 9000 CPU cooler. This is an attempt to make a really silent high-performance cooler – using “heatpipe on CPU” technology, something already used in the S1283 from Xigmatek. Installation was frustrating, though, and it wasn’t as silent as desired. Good review, right here. µ