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Today I have a long put-off review of the Gigabyte 8800GT. The 8800GT happens to be rather “old” card in the grand scheme of things however it’s still a very powerful card and very attractive in it’s current price point. The 8800GT was originally launched in October 2007 and over the course of 7 months it’s drastically dropped in price will still being a powerful player in the midrange GPU market. Gigabyte has re-worked the PCB used with this card and features a factory overclock, do these extra features make this card even more competitive?

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During my recent trip to California, Corsair hooked me up with some of the DDR2 and DDR3 Dominators. Prior to this I have more or less stuck with OCZ since my DDR1 days however I simply couldn’t pass up these sticks. For the following week I was jittery in anticipation, these sticks had the potential to really unlock my DDR2 platform. My CrossFire benching has jumped onto the DDR3 bandwagon however my SLI platform is still utilizing a 780i motherboard, hence all my excitement. So how do these sticks hold up? Are they worth they price tag and wicked heatspreaders?

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I don’t often change what keyboard and mouse I use. I’ve had the same Logitech keyboard and mouse from 2003 . Late last year I decided to switch over to a Logitech MX Revolution but I held off on a keyboard as nothing appealed to me. When Apple launched their wired and wireless keyboards last year, I liked the look of them but wasn’t certain I’d like their short keystroke. Months later and I finally sprang for an Apple Wireless Keyboard and what a difference. So how does the Apple Wireless Keyboard actually stack up? Is it all design or actually functional?

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I’ve got a treat for you guys today. This review will be one of my most complete reviews ever. On the table I’ve got Gigabyte’s flagship motherboard, the EX38-DQ6. Gigabyte is one of the major motherboard vendors and for Intel’s Core 2 processors they have a motherboard covering every price-point from $50 to $300. The EX38-DQ6 boasts many of the features one would expect to see on a top-tier board but lets see if it justifies it’s lofty price.

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When one card won’t do, logic says two should do the trick. This is the logic that applies to AMD’s CrossFire and CrossFireX platforms. Typical computers have a single graphical processor that handles all graphical computation, multi-GPU setups though split the workload between the GPUs in hopes of wrangling some additional performance from the system. Today I have two Sapphire HD3850 video cards and a Gigabyte X38-DS4 to perform my first foray into multi-GPU setups.

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Even extreme hardware benchers need effective data storage and Rosewill has managed to pull a winner with the RX81-MP. In a market saturated with products it is very hard to standout but this particular enclosure does well by adopting what I’d consider to be a classy exterior with a performance interior. The enclosure itself is formed from heavy gauge aluminum with an eye catching vented grill to help cool the enclosed hard drive. Let’s see how this product stands up to the test.

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On the bench today I have a set of Sapphire HD3850 512MB video cards. These cards are the 55nm versions of the hot and heavy HD2900XT. Considering how the 80nm 2900XT was such a power hungry card, moving to 55nm cut down on power consumption tremendously and enabled AMD to spec these cards with a single slot cooler. Today I will only be reviewing a single card as my current Crossfire board is based on the P35 chipset and has a 16x/4x split on the PCIe lanes which results in less than optimal performance. When I review these cards in Crossfire I’ll compare between 16x/16x and 16x/4x for those interested in seeing a budget Crossfire solution.

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I’ve got an addiction, a Hafnium addiction to be precise. Just under two weeks ago I purchased a QX9650 and earlier today while returning an item to Fry’s, I decided it’d be a good idea to pick up an E8400. For $201 with tax, I couldn’t resist the temptation. The 3.0GHz E8400 is Intel’s highest clocked chip amongst available processors with the 3.16GHz E8500 postponed till later this Spring. For the price the E8400 is quite the bargain considering how it has the potential to crush the old X6800 and E6850 Conroes on air and water cooling and potentially rival the X6800 under sub-ambient cooling. This will be a two part review with the first part focusing on stock performance with the stock fan and overclocked performance on a select few heatsink.

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