It used to be that spending more than $5,000 or $6,000 on a high-end gaming PC returned very little in the way of actual performance. However, with Intel’s pricey solid-state hard drives tearing up performance charts, suddenly dropping $8,000-plus on a performance PC will actually get …
Continue reading about Review: Maingear’s high-end, tri-SLI Ephex gaming PC
On Wednesday, we wrote that we’d published reviews of two high-end PC graphics cards: Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 295, and what we thought at the time was the Asus EAHD4870X2 TOP, an overclocked card using ATI’s Radeon HD 4870X2 dual-chip design. We learned Thursday morning that the Asus card we thought we had is actually something else.
As found on the Asus Web site, here is a picture of the standard clocked edition of its $479 EAHD4870X2 graphics card:
(Credit: Asus)Also on that same site, a picture of the $550 overclocked version:
(Credit: Asus)Finally, here’s what showed up in our lab:
(Credit: CNET)Turns out, despite all outward appearances, the card we received was not, in fact, overclocked. Instead, it’s the standard edition, at 750MHz clock speed per core. AMD says it sent us the Asus-branded, ready-for-retail packaged version, but we’re unclear as to why the fan and heatsink assembly is so different than what Asus has on display. If you’ve purchased the standard clocked edition yourself, we’d be interested to know what came in your box.
The reviews (Asus now here, competing GeForce GTX 295 here) have since been corrected, although our assessment stays the same. We still recommend the Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 card over the Asus card, or any other with ATI’s Radeon HD4870 X2 design. The standard version may be $479, down from the $550 overclocked model, but it’s still slower and more power-hungry than the GTX 295, which costs just $20 more. You can also bet we’ll be running GPU-Z on all 3D cards from here on to confirm their clock speeds.
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Continue reading about Update: AMD vs. Nvidia: High-end 3D card head-to-head
We normally can’t get too excited about model refreshes, but Acer’s newly announced Aspire X1700 PC made us take notice with its specs. Basically an updated version of the Aspire X1200 from last fall, the Aspire X1700 now has an Intel Pentium Dual Core processor (compared with an …
Lenovo only barely dabbled in the U.S. home PC market last year, but it looks like it will make a stronger push for those consumer dollars in 2009. We caught wind of a new Lenovo all-in-one at CES, and Tuesday it announces two new standard desktops aimed at home …
Continue reading about Lenovo expands consumer desktop family
On the heel’s of Logitech’s announcement of its own new PC gaming peripherals, Razer brings word this morning of new PC gaming mouse and a audio headset. The $130 Mamba mouse hits stores in February and the $80 Carcharias (a family of sharks) headset is set to debut …
Originally posted at CES 2009
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Even if the case lighting caused consternation for some, we were fans of Dell’s XPS 630 gaming desktop, which delivered solid bang-for-the-buck in a sub $2,000 PC. With this morning’s announcement of the XPS 625, Dell once again sets its sights on the midrange gamer. Starting at $…
Originally posted at CES 2009
Continue reading about Dell rides the Dragon with new XPS 625 gaming PC
AMD’s new Dragon platform uses components from several AMD product families
(Credit: AMD)
As the only vendor currently producing CPUs, GPUs, and motherboard chipsets, AMD is uniquely positioned to market its entire product line as a unified PC gaming platform. It began this effort last year with its Spider platform (the original Phenom X4, Radeon HD 3000-series CPUs, and its 700-series chipsets), and with today’s launch of its new Phenom II desktop chips, AMD also announced its new Dragon platform. Dragon marries Phenom II with the Radeon HD 4800-line of 3D cards and AMD’s 790-series chipsets into a complete, AMD-made gaming PC.
The big news with Dragon is really the Phenom II chips. Available as the 3.0GHz Phenom II X4 940 and the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920, these new quad-core CPUs are AMD’s first 45-nanometer desktop processors, and they finally bring AMD in line with Intel’s 45-nano manufacturing process, used in its Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Core i7 chips.
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Originally posted at CES 2009
Continue reading about AMD introduces Dragon PC gaming platform and new Phenom II CPUs
Logitech announced several new member of its G-Series line of PC peripherals today. We’ll tackle them one at a time, starting with the G35 Surround Sound headset.
The G35 Surround Sound Headset simulates 7.1 channel audio output
(Credit: Logitech)
When it’s available in March, the Logitech G35 …
Originally posted at CES 2009
Continue reading about Logitech announces handful of G-Series PC gaming accessories
Pre-Macworld buzz suggested that both a new Mac Mini and a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro laptop were in the offing from Apple Tuesday on the hardware front.
It seems that the moldy old Mac Mini will stick around for at least a little longer, but the 17-inch MacBook Pro did indeed receive an update to the new all-aluminum chassis Apple debuted on its smaller 13-inch MacBook and 15-inch MacBook Pro this past October.
Along with the new chassis, an improved display, and a glass trackpad (all things we’ve seen before), Apple has brought a few other changes to its highest-end laptop:
The 17-inch MacBook Pro gets a new chassis with improved display technology.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)
Glossy and matte display options
The new 15-inch MacBook Pro came with a glossy screen that many people found too reflective. Apple will now offer a $50 matte finish option for the 17-inch MacBook Pro, for those who’d rather do without all of that extra light. We’re happy about this option, and we expect that many others will be as well.
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Originally posted at Macworld 2009
Continue reading about Quick take: Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro
News of HP’s new Firebird gaming PC leaked a few weeks ago, but with the official announcement this morning, we’re free from our embargo and can finally comment on the product. As has been rumored, HP’s new system is officially named the HP Firebird with VoodooDNA. This …
Originally posted at CES 2009
Continue reading about HP shrinks Firebird gaming PC with Voodoo