Components
Processors
AMD Phenom II X4 810
May 11, 2009 The original Phenom was launched in 2007 and while reasonably priced, it didn’t have the innards to make it an alternative to Intel’s Core line. Flash forward to 2009 and AMD has launched its new Phenom II CPUs
Graphics cards
Gigabyte GV-N285-1GH-B
Mar 30, 2009 NVidia released the GeForce GTX 295 and GTX 285 simultaneously and of the two, the 285 is designed for high-end users whereas the 295 targets the ultra-high-end market
Motherboards
ECS GF8200A Black
Feb 24, 2009 nVidia designed its GeForce 8200 (GF8200) chipset to compete with AMD’s 780G in the value market. The GF8200 supports AM2+ processors and DDR2 memory and, like the 780G, is a single-chip-based chipset
Power supply
Corsair TX750W
Feb 16, 2009 Corsair is targeting discerning enthusiasts interested in powering their high-end PCs with a PSU that is cost-effective, quiet and able. Is it up to the mark?
Graphics cards
Palit GeForce 9800GT Sonic
Feb 16, 2009 The 9800GT is not a brand new GPU. It is quite simply a GeForce 8800GT with a few enhancements. One such upgrade is HybridPower, which allows the video card to be turned off (only on compatible motherboard) when not playing games
Graphics cards
XFX GeForce GTX 295
Feb 09, 2009 The GeForce GTX 295 is nVidia’s latest dual-GPU graphics offering and targets AMD’s Radeon HD 4870X2. And, despite the fact that XFX is no longer a nVidia exclusive graphics partner, the firm is still one of the first out the door with GTX 295 cards
Graphics cards
Gigabyte Radeon HD 4870 GV-R487-1GH-B
Feb 02, 2009 The Radeon HD 4870 GPU was launched with 512Mbytes of GDDR5 RAM making it the first GPU in the world to use this expensive memory. Now, card vendors have begun fitting 4870 cards with 1Gbyte of memory to boost performance
Graphics cards
Asus EAH4870X2 TOP
Feb 02, 2009 At the time of going to press Asus’ 4870X2 series consisted of two cards; the EAH4870X2 and EAH4870X2 TOP. Our test sample is the former and the ‘TOP’ lettering signifies that this card is also pre-overclocked at the factory
HDD
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS
Jan 26, 2009 Western Digital’s line-up consists of the Caviar Black, Blue and Green. Whereas the ‘Black’ is designed for performance and the ‘Blue’ to balance performance, reliability and value, the ‘Green’ is setup for cool, quiet and eco-friendly running
SSD
Silicon Power 2.5” 32GB SSD
Jan 26, 2009 Silicon Power manufactures a range of products and has recently begun offering Solid State Disks (SSDs). The firm offers these drives with either the Serial ATA or older IDE interface and capacities have reached as high as 128Gbytes
Processors
Intel Core i7 920
Dec 09, 2008 Intel has been on a winning-streak ever since it unleashed its ‘Core’ processors. Not content with waiting around for AMD to counterattack, Intel continued to update its Core processors to boost performance and this trend has continued to this day
Heat sinks
Thermaltake V14 Pro
Dec 02, 2008 ‘Enormous!’ That was the first word out of everyone’s mouth in the office, the second they laid eyes on Thermaltake’s super-sized V14 Pro CPU cooler
SSD
Patriot SSD Warp 64GB
Dec 02, 2008 Solid State Drives (SSD) differ from hard drives on a number of levels but the most noticeable difference is that the former features no moving parts. Rather, SSDs rely on flash chips to store data, which gives them tremendous speed and ruggedness
