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.

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

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!

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.

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.

Windows 2000, Windows XP 32/64bit, Windows Server 2003 32/64bit, Windows Vista 32/64bit, Windows Server 2008 32/64bit, and Windows 7 32/64bit

You can download the latest drivers below:

Marvell Yukon Windows 7, Vista, XP Driver Version 11.24.5.3

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.

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

The Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler is another attempt at taking the high-end air-cooling crown for the company and it puts up some impressive numbers along the way. VortezHardware has the review:

The Venomous X can only be described by one word, and that’s “Beastly”. It is quite distinctive in design from the Ultra Extreme in that the Venomous X uses a different fin design and the arrangement of the heat pipes is more linear at the top rather than in a circular pattern. As mentioned earlier, it is a few mms narrower than the Thermolab Baram but the extra heat pipe should give it the advantage. The whole heatsink is nickel plated to protect against corrosion, enabling a much longer life span. The construction is a combination of copper for the base and aluminium for the fins, ensuring the best heat conductivity without adding on too much weight.

If you’re looking for a high end cooler for that new CPU of yours you can’t do much better.

Synology’s DiskStation DS210j Network Attached Storage allows you to serve up files on your network and should be at a low enough price point where most anyone can jump into the NAS game. Testseek Labs has the review:

There are also the options to make updates of the software, reset to factory defaults, install external modules like an e-mail server, web statistics server and there’s even a small phpMyAdmin module which means you can install MySql and run this unit as a small web server with a database.

Extending it beyond mere file serving is sure to excite the tweakers out there.