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MSI Big Bang Fuzion: Pulling The Covers Off Of Lucid’s Hydra TechJan 7, 2010 - in Reviews
After more than a year of waiting, LucidLogix's Hydra engine is ready to ship on MSI's Big Bang Fuzion motherboard. We have the platform in our lab and have spent the past week throwing Radeon HD 5870s and GeForce GTX 285s at it. Read on for the results!
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Quick Look: HP's MediaSmart EX495 Home ServerJan 1, 2010 - in Reviews
We're big fans of media servers, and HP's MediaSmart boxes have consistently impressed us. Of course, every time we look at a configured machine, the comments light up with DIY suggestions, so we went that route as well in today's look at the new EX495.
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Say Goodbye To Your BIOS: Hello, UEFI!Dec 29, 2009 - in Reviews
Alright, so it's not as simple as waving the BIOS away. While the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is ready to replace the old and inflexible BIOS, most platform vendors aren't prepared, even though we’re about to run into a new storage barrier.
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P55 On Boost: Five LGA 1156 Boards Between $200 And $250Dec 14, 2009 - in Reviews
Intel’s P55 Express remains a mainstream chipset, so by breaking through the $200 barrier, we have high expectations of superb overclocking, unsurpassed stability, and uncompromising features. Can all of today’s boards meet those enthusiast demands?
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Radeon HD 5770, Radeon HD 4890, And GeForce GTX 275 OverclockedNov 23, 2009 - in Reviews
Can you hit the performance level of the next-fastest GPU by overclocking your graphics card? What is the impact on power consumption? Can your cooler take the extra heat? We overclock three modern graphics cards to their limits for some answers.
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Enthusiast P55: Eight LGA 1156 Boards Between $150 And $200Nov 10, 2009 - in Reviews
Upper-range P55 motherboards cost around $100 less than similarly-equipped X58 products, but are these still good enough for enthusiasts? We take a closer look at eight different models, dissect their features, benchmark them, and come away with a winner.
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Core i7-870 Overclocking And Fixing Blown P55-Based BoardsNov 3, 2009 - in Reviews
Last month, we discovered that many budget P55-based motherboards simply weren't designed to stand up to the rigors of overclocking--bad news for intrepid value-based enthusiasts. Today we revisit the topic with revised boards and a Core i7-870.
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Overclocked On Air: Intel's Core i5-750Oct 28, 2009 - in Reviews
Intel's new quad-core i5 and i7 CPUs for LGA 1156 deliver plenty of performance and impressive efficiency. But how far can they be overclocked? We take the entry-level model Core i5-750 as far as it'll go with a modest air cooler and benchmark it.
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Seven AMD 785G-Based Motherboards Rounded UpOct 27, 2009 - in Reviews
When AMD launched its 785G chipset, we were impressed by the mainstream value enabled from such an affordable platform. In this roundup, we're covering seven different 785G-based board covering ATX, microATX, DDR2 memory, DDR3, and two different sockets.
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P55 On A Budget: Five Core i5/i7 Motherboards For $100-$150Oct 8, 2009 - in Reviews
Intel’s newest desktop processor series is all about value, and the P55 platform already powers some very affordable motherboards. We put five such boards to the test, hoping to see solid baseline performance and overclocking headroom at great prices.
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System Builder Marathon, Sept. '09: AMD System Value ComparedSep 29, 2009 - in Reviews
Our response to reader-demand for AMD systems focuses on the company’s penchant for gaming value across three budget classes. How do these fully-optimized systems compare to each other in ultimate performance and value?
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System Builder Marathon, Sept. '09: $2,500 Performance PCSep 28, 2009 - in Reviews
Reader suggestions and previous test results defined most of this month’s highest-priced build. Will the extra planning and testing pay off in clear overclocking and performance superiority? We use Radeon HD 4890s, SSDs, and 8GB of RAM to find out!
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System Builder Marathon, Sept. '09: $1,250 Enthusiast BuildSep 25, 2009 - in Reviews
With a limited budget and high-resolution gaming in our sights, we spice up this quarter's $1,250 build with as many graphics cards as we can fit into a mid-range chassis. By popular request, this one's an all-AMD build with plenty of horsepower.
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Is It Worth Upgrading Your Stock CPU Cooler?Sep 3, 2009 - in Reviews
Retail processors usually come with a bundled cooler, which will serve you well—at least until you try to overclock. We replaced the heat sink that Intel includes with its Core i7-920 with a higher-end model from Zalman in order to gauge the improvement.
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One Last Look: ASRock And MSI Preview P55 MotherboardsAug 28, 2009 - in Picture Story
We've previewed a number of P55-based motherboards from Asus and Gigabyte, and have a solid idea of what to expect come launch. ASRock and MSI recently sent us samples from their upcoming lineups as well. Today we give you one last preview before launch.
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Making Lemonade: Overclocking Your Locked AMD ProcessorAug 27, 2009 - in Reviews
We're spoiled. We know we are. Most of our AMD-oriented overclocking efforts center on unlocked Black Edition CPUs. But what if you're running a standard Phenom II? Today we show you how to get just as much performance from it using three techniques.
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Under Core i7's Hood: Comparing The C0 And D0 SteppingsAug 21, 2009 - in Reviews
You've likely already seen coverage of Intel's C0-based Core i7s compared to the latest stepping, D0. We wanted to do something different, so we compared the Core i7-965 Extreme to the 975 using base performance, power, and overclocking as our metrics.
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Southbridge Battle: 780a, ICH10 and SB750, ComparedAug 11, 2009 - in Reviews
Modern southbridges support multiple RAID levels via software, but do they deliver decent performance? We used six Intel SSDs and tortured the top three by AMD, Intel and Nvidia. As if that weren't cruel enough, we added LSI's 6 Gb/s SAS card to the mix.
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X58 On A Budget: Seven Sub-$200 Core i7 BoardsJul 29, 2009 - in Reviews
With our $300+ and $200-300 Core i7 motherboard comparisons distant memories, it’s time for a sub-$200 roundup. Recent price fluctuations have pushed two contenders over the mark after we tested them, but readers get to see those as well.
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Graphics Overclocking: Getting The Most From Your GPUJul 27, 2009 - in Reviews
Overclocking your graphics card can help squeeze out precious performance in games that utilize maximum GPU horsepower. We test whether it's better to overclock with your board vendor's tools, the GPU-maker's software, or third-party utilities.
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Guide: Overclocking AMD And Intel CPUs On A BudgetJul 20, 2009 - in Reviews
Once the territory of savvy enthusiasts, overclocking is now easy enough to entice even first-time builders. We walk through the process with four high-value dual- and quad-core CPUs from AMD and Intel: two Phenom IIs, a Pentium, and a Core 2 Quad.
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Eurocom’s Core i7 Notebook: Walking The PantherJul 7, 2009 - in Reviews
Performance notebooks with desktop processors are nothing new, but Core i7’s thermal challenges are new. With thermal management potentially slamming the brakes, can Eurocom’s D900F Panther outpace current notebook technology under full benchmark loads?
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MSI Eclipse Plus: Does nForce 200 Boost 3-Way SLI?Jun 23, 2009 - in Reviews
With 36 lanes of PCIe 2.0, 3-way SLI could be the X58 chipset’s biggest challenge. If that turns out to be true, is Nvidia’s nForce 200 controller hub, which multiplexes the platform's connectivity, a solution? We compare three configurations to find out.
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Overclocking Core 2 Duo: Power Versus PerformanceJun 6, 2009 - in Reviews
Intel's fastest Core 2 Duo, the E8600, runs at 3.33 GHz. But if you're a performance-hungry power user, we found that you can actually increase the chip's efficiency by overclocking it, thanks to 45 nm manufacturing and plenty of built-in headroom.
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Best Of The Best: High-End Graphics Card RoundupMay 22, 2009 - in Reviews
Performance on its own is not enough to earn a recommendation here. The very best graphics cards also employ innovative cooling to help muscle their way into our hearts. Today, we look at high-end offerings from BFG, EVGA, MSI, Palit, and Zotac
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Gaming Graphics Charts For 2009: Updated!May 19, 2009 - in Reviews
The 2009 Graphics Card Charts are here! New this year is an updated platform, reference and retail products (with overclocked/special edition boards), and an entirely new suite of benchmarks. Come compare the performance of your favorite cards!
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GeForce 9600 GT/GTS 250/GTX 260 Non-Reference RoundupMay 7, 2009 - in Reviews
We take a look at a handful of non-reference cards with GeForce heritage: the 9600 GT, the GTS 250, and the GTX 260 from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and Zotac. Read on to find out which cards performed, overclocked, and impressed us the most.
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Roundup: Four 790FX Socket AM3 MotherboardsApr 22, 2009 - in Reviews
While most manufacturers tout the value of AMD’s latest 790GX integrated chipset, enthusiasts need the added PCI Express connectivity of 790FX for multi-card graphics configurations. We test four 790FX-based AM3 motherboards for your Phenom II processor.
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X58 Roundup: Seven $200-300 Core i7 BoardsMar 19, 2009 - in Reviews
With our $300+ X58-based Motherboard Roundup weeks behind, we now examine Core i7’s middle class. How much functionality must buyers sacrifice to save as much as $100? Seven motherboards made the cut in this latest roundup.
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Intel X58 Roundup: Six $300+ Platforms ComparedFeb 23, 2009 - in Reviews
High-end enthusiasts are certain to be among the first adopters of Intel’s latest Core i7 architecture, so our extensive comparisons begin with motherboards specifically targeted towards these systems. What does $300 get you?