When a new GPU lineup is rolled out you can expect to see quite a few variations on the design over the coming months as the chip designer wants to maximize their earning potentials, which also means you’re likely to find something within your budget as well.

AMD’s Radeon HD 5570 sports the same great core features the rest of the 5000 lineup is endowed with but its slimmed down processing capabilities means you won’t be paying as much for the advanced features.

Here’s a roundup of reviews from around the web:

• AMD’s Radeon HD 5570: Low Profile, Higher Performance – AnandTech
• AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 5570 Video Card Review – HardOCP
• ATI Radeon HD 5570: Affordable DX11 GPU – Hot Hardware
• ATI Radeon HD 5450 & HD 5570 Graphics Cards – SilentPCReview
• ATI Radeon HD 5570 Review – TechSpot

Fan manufacturers have a number of tricks to get even more airflow out of their cooling products. It usually comes in a combination of increasing fan blade surface area or increasing the rate at which the fan’s blades rotate. We prefer the first method.

The Noctua NF-P14 FLX Case Fan comes in with a 140mm diameter but, with some fancy fan mount placing, can latch on to existing 120mm fan mounts making for some interesting possibilities. Verdis Reviews has a look:

The temperatures across the board reflect what’s on paper favouring the NF-P14 FLX by one or two degrees. Perhaps not a huge decrease but remember that just one fan was used throughout testing, fitting out a case with multiple Noctua NF-P14’s should equate to a bigger reduction in temperature.

An intriguing fan for your high air-flow needs.

When most enthusiasts think of a dual-GPU graphics card thoughts of insane frame rates and GPGPU crunching power come to mind, for some daring graphics card manufacturers it’s a chance to take a daring step into PhysX accelerated gaming.

Benchmark Reviews has a look at the EVGA GeForce GTX275 CO-OP PhysX Edition graphics card and its dual role as a 3D and PhysX accelerator:

The EVGA GTX 275 CO-OP PhysX Edition is the first dual GPU video card to use different GPUs: there’s a GTX 275 and a GTS 250. You cannot connect a monitor to the GTS 250; in fact, you can’t use the GTS 250 for rendering at all. Both of the DVI connectors on the rear of the card are connected to the GTX 275. The GTS 250 is only available for CUDA work.

An interesting proposal for those with an extensive library of physics demanding titles.

When computer manufacturers start to branch out from their bread and butter you see a bit of product rebranding and half-hearted product designs before they unceremoniously leave the market altogether. Foxconn seems to have some staying power.

While the company is better known for many of their OEM works (or not at all) their retail products, such as the Inferno Katana P55 motherboard, show some nice feature sets. NinjaLane has the review:

As with most all Quantum Force products the overclocking experience was extremely enjoyable and rather intuitive.  While our overlock was limited to a maximum 4Ghz we do feel there is more this system can offer given some time and turning.  One thing to notice is that at 4Ghz and a matching 2000Mhz memory clock the overall bandwidth is just 6GB/s shy of the Core i7 on the X58.  Not too bad for a low end Core i5.

Impressive tweaking potential from the looks of things.

As PCs get more powerful you see new applications pop up that take advantage of the new-found number crunching capabilities which in turn use up increasing amounts of memory for its various needs.

The Kingston HyperX 1600MHz 12GB Triple Channel DDR3 Memory Kit obviously offers quite a bit of memory space for your system. TestFreaks has a look:

Kingston one of the premier names in memory business has released the HyperX 1600MHz 12GB Triple Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K6/12G). This set is designed for those using an X58 LGA 1366 motherboard in conjunction with the Core i7 series. The kit is composed of six 2GB sticks of DDR3 memory designed to operate at 1600 MHz.

Six 2GB sticks might not be the optimal configuration for the power user wanting 24GB of system memory but it does cut down on the cost by quite a bit.

Computer case manufacturers tend to gum up the front of a design with all manner of USB ports and power buttons and LEDs despite the fact that many computer users keep their PC at floor level making any sort of stretching to plug in that cord a hassle.

Thermaltake’s Element V moves most of the buttons, dials, and ports to the top of the chassis allowing for easy access. PureOC has the review:

The front of the Element V lacks any sort of door that we saw on the Element S tower, though there is a fully-meshed front bezel that runs the entire height of the case and is easily pulled off without any fuss.  This will certainly help with ventilation and airflow into the case.  There are dust filters inside the bezel, easy to remove and clean.  The front bezel incorporates one 120mm intake fan, located in front of the hard drives, aiding to help cool the hard drives. It’s too bad it’s not a 200mm fan like we’ve seen elsewhere.

Plenty of airflow to be had as well, hope you enjoy dusting things.

The Tech Report has delved into Intel’s latest press briefings and pulled out some interesting information on the company’s upcoming 6-core processors and funk stuff they have going on in their labs.

Most notable are the massive power saving tweaks Intel has put into their Gulftown design which should help keep its heat output in check. One nifty design the company is working on should be of great interest to companies wanting to interface two high bandwidth devices using nothing but ribbon cable.

Intriguing technology any hardware head should be interested in.

SATA 6Gbps support is one of those features enthusiasts have been clamoring for yet its shelf life is likely to be quite short. Storage interfaces rarely meet their full potential before another faster standard is released, thankfully at least one company is pushing their products into using SATA 600 before it goes away completely.

The Micron Crucial RealSSD-C300 SSD is one of the first solid state drives to support SATA 600 and offers speeds above those limited by the SATA 300 interface. Benchmark Reviews has a look:

The Crucial RealSSD-C300 offered up to 383/227 MBps read and writes speeds in ATTO Disk Benchmark trailed by 363/226 MBps in Crystal DiskMark, while Everest reported a 332/215 MBps linear bandwidth speed. Input/Output performance was modest in Iometer and HD-Tune, indicating that the MTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 model would perform extremely well for enthusiast consumers but not offer the high operational functionality needed in the Enterprise server sector.

An extremely fast drive when paired up with the faster interface. Hopefully more manufacturers take the lead.

Many top-tier heatsinks rely on multiple fans to get added airflow over their fins which usually translates into lower temperatures, it’s one of the many methods manufacturers are using to get even better cooling results.

Of course Noctua’s NH-D14 dual fan heatsink goes all out with serrated leading edges on their fins to create air turbulence for better performance as well as six massive heatpipes to move the heat  away from your processor quickly. ProClockers has the review:

The D14 is a massive cooler, but this is something we have seen time and time again from companies like Noctua. However, I want to stress the D14 is even bigger. With both fans (more on those later) the D14 weighs in at 1240 grams. The cooler along weighs just 900 grams. But after reviewing the Thermalright  CU TRUE no weight surprises me anymore. Yet, weight is one thing. Gross size is another. The D14 stands about six inches tall. With all the evidence in just this one paragraph the D14 should be pretty top heavy.

It also sports a bit of fan overhang, which they mention, a nice addition for getting a little airflow to those hard-to-reach MOSFETS.

Running multi-GPU setups that feature low-end graphics cards has been, in the past, a good way to spend a decent chunk of money for a very low performance benefit. AMD’s latest chips flip that around a bit.

The AMD Radeon HD 5670 slots into the low-end of the 3D performance market but when it’s set up in CrossFire it can improve into a solid mid-range solution. TweakTown has the review:

Now, before you say that two HD 5670s are more expensive than a single HD 5770, let me stop you and say; I know. HD 5670s can be had for under $100, though; closer to the $95 mark. And again, while that setup is slightly more expensive than a single HD 5770, it’s also slightly faster across the board.

Performance that scales with the amount you pay…how intriguing!