The half-height graphics card segment doesn’t get much respect. It has to toil away with rather weak GPU offerings because space issues make decent cooling solutions pretty much impossible and the power supplies in such PCs are generally underpowered anyway.

The HIS Radeon HD 5570 brings impressive graphics performance to the form factor allowing for some decent gaming to be done. Hardware Secrets has the review:

HIS Radeon HD 5570 Fan, part number H557F1G, runs at the default clock rates set by AMD. As you can see on the pictures below it is a half-height video card. You can transform it into a “slim” (“half-height”) video card to be installed in small form factor (SFF) cases using the I/O brackets that come with the product.

A nice solution if you’re stuck in the restrictive confines many PC manufacturers impose on unwitting buyers.

The current PC case market has all of the features that make it a joy to build a computer. Plenty of airflow and space to install components are just two of the main reasons but all of the added benefits have come with some beefy pricetags.

Thermaltake’s V3 Black Edition PC Case sports many of the great features mid-tower designs tout but it comes in at a price that’s much more palatable. Overclockers Club has the review:

The top has holes to accommodate two 120mm fans, which are not included with the case. On the front panel are some familiar things. We have your typical power and reset switches, as well as Power LED and HDD activity LED. The front panel connections consist of two USB ports, a MIC port, and an audio out port.

While there is a distinct lack of cooling fans that’s easy enough to add on as you go, and of course its low cost will enable you to buy plenty of fans.

There’s something to be said about custom cooling configurations. The base models most chip manufacturers ship with their creations do the minimum amount of work with the maximum amount of noise output imaginable.

MSI’s HD 5870 Lightning graphics card does away with the reference cooler in favor of a dual fan design that looks more than up to the task of cooling the Radeon HD 5870 it houses. techPowerUp has the review:

When looking at the PCB design, it becomes clear that MSI has gone long ways to improve the AMD reference design for extra overclocking potential. The included SSC coils work without emitting any coil noise, and the added number of PWM phases will help in situations that require large amounts of power fed to the GPU. But it seems to me that during normal use and during overclocking with the stock cooler, these features seem to make little difference.

A performance tailored card with plenty of features enthusiasts are looking for and a hefty amount of cooling performance.

Chip refreshes typically don’t add many new features aside from a speed bump here or there and a bit more cahce to make things run smoother. Some chip manufacturers want to shake things up.

Intel’s Core i7 980X brings 6 Hyper-Threading capable cores and 12MB of cache to the party with some mighty impressive results for multi-threaded applications. Here are some of the reviews floating around the web:

The Core i7 980X Review: Intel’s First 6-Core CPU – AnandTech
Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Review – bit tech
Intel Core i7-980X Extreme 6-Core Processor – Hot Hardware
Intel Core i7-980X Gulftown Hexa-core Processor Review – PC Perspective
Intel Core i7-980X 32nm LGA-1366 Six Core CPU – TweakTown
Intel’s new Gulftown Six Core CPU meets LN2 Extreme Cooling – TweakTown

Core unlocking has been one of the ways enthusiasts have been enjoying the AMD platform. The thought of picking up an inexpensive dual or triple core CPU and unlocking cores to bump them up to triple or quad core processors is just too much to pass up for some.

The ASUS M4A89GTD Pro is one of the first 890GX motherboard to tout its core unl0cking capability which may make it the standard for enthusiasts:

While most of the boards within a certain price bracket follow a common component formula, ASUS and ASRock have managed to segregate themselves by breaking rank and offering hardware level core unlocking for budget dual/tri-core AMD processors. That means that you can buy a sub $100 CPU and unlock it at your leisure to enjoy 4 core number crunching. The feature itself is not new per se, it’s just that AMD decided to drop support for ACC on series 8 chipsets, leaving vendors to do things on their own accord. ASUS’ workaround is almost certain to have upset AMD, but we think they made the right choice – if moving to the 8-series chipsets meant giving up core unlocking, many enthusiasts wouldn’t.

A great performer and capable of unlocking CPUs, not much more to say other than awesome!

The workstation notebook is an interesting computing platform as it attempts to recreate the desktop in a mobile form which leads to some very impressive performance results compared to your run of the mill notebook.

AnandTech has a look at the Dell M6500 workstation notebook and its ability to handle all manner of high-end design applications:

Part of what we like about the M6500 is the flat design; there’s no sloping keyboard or chassis here. Many notebooks with a high-end CPU and GPU will have a thicker back to accommodate larger cooling configurations. Dell has put some real effort into keeping the chassis as slim as possible. Make no mistake, it’s still a 17″ chassis, but compared to many other such notebooks the M6500 looks and feels a bit smaller. It also fits into my “standard” 17″ notebook bag quite easily, which isn’t always the case. The slim slot-load drive also helps with the chassis design.

A slick design that should make your co-workers quite envious.

With gamers and enthusiasts jamming increasing amounts of computing power into their PCs there’s an even greater need for lots of airflow in a computer case. Your graphics card may exhaust hot air out the back and the same may go for your CPU cooler but there are plenty of other chips that need to be cooled in there.

The Thermaltake Element V Computer Case sure does offer plenty of mounting points for fans as well as a built-in fan controller to keep the noise in check. Hardware Bistro has the review:

One of the significant cooling features of Thermaltake Element V is this dual 200mm air vents. Although only a single 200mm cooling is included at the top panel of Thermaltake Element V but it is good enough to pull out the heated air from the chassis which is mainly generated by the CPU. However if extreme cooling is really needed then an additional 200mm cooling fan can be manually added.

Now to wait for some 200mm radiators to pop up for some extreme water cooling.

There’s always that spoiler that shows up to the party and ruins everybody’s fun. While that fun has meant higher prices on motherboards they won’t be able to ignore this competitor’s lower price tag.

The ASRock H55M Pro LGA1156 Motherboard isn’t the most overclocking capable board out there, at least with its current BIOS, but its low price is certain to capture your attention. bit-tech has the review:

The H55M Pro is neatly laid out too, helping to keep a media PC in a cramped case neat and free of airflow obstructions. The 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS12V power connectors are located on the edges of the board, and the chipset heatsink is small and unobtrusive. Equally, the two fan headers are spaced well apart for easy connections to front or rear fans, but if you want more than two speed-controlled fans, you’ll need to buy a fan controller.

Nicely laid out and decent performance to boot, a decent choice for that budget build.

Apple’s tablet/cellphone/thing dubbed the iPad has generated plenty of attention for itself seeing as it’s a large jump into a market most companies haven’t thought of. Sitting between an iPhone and full-fledged tablet the iPad will certainly find some use if the company’s legion of fans have anything to say about it.

The company will be launching its iPad Wi-Fi model on April 3rd with Wi-Fi + 3G models being released sometime late next month. Pre-orders for both models of the gadget will begin March 12th, or next Friday, so get your F5 key ready you’re probably going to need it.

Source: Apple