For your reading pleasure, a collection of news stories and reviews making news this week on the web:

Cases, Cooling, and Power Supplies

Antec Skeleton Case Review – MektuMods

bgears b-Tarantula 650Watt Power Supply Review – TestFreaks

Cooler Master ATCS 840 Classic Case Review – bit-tech

Corsair TX750 PSU Review – DriverHeaven

OCZ Gladiator MAX Review Review – Overclockers Club

SilverStone Decathlon DA700 Power Supply Review – Silent PC Review

SilverStone FT01 Mid-Tower Case Review – Techgage

Thermaltake ProWater 850i Water Cooling Kit Review – HardwareLogic

Turbo Twins and a Swordsman: New VGA Coolers Reviewed – X-bit labs

CPUs, Motherboards, Memory

AMD 790GX chipset – Foxconn A7DA-S Motherboard Review – Elite Bastards

Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3 1333MHz Review – Pro-Clockers

ECS P45T-AD3 Motherboard Review – Legion Hardware

EVGA nForce 790i SLI FTW Motherboard Review – Hexus

Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Motherboard Review – Techgage

Patriot Extreme Performance Viper Series PC2-8500 DDR2 4GB Kite Review – Modders-Inc.

Zotac GF9300-A-E Motherboard Review – TrustedReviews

Desktop Systems

Dell Studio Hybrid Small Form Factor Desktop Review – HotHardware

iBuyPower Australia FragBox SFF PC Review – TweakTown

Gaming

Fallout 3 (Xbox 360) Review – CVG

Far Cry 2 (PC) Review – YouGamers

Harmonix’s Beatles Game to Only Have 45 Songs? – 1UP

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (PS3) Review – GamingHeaven

Nintendo DSi Impressions and Comparisons – 1UP

Resistance 2 (PS3) Review – GamingHeaven

Xbox 360 Hard Drive Game Installation Testing – GameSpot

Graphics Cards and Displays

ASUS My Cinema-PHC3-100/NAQ/FM/AV/RC TV Tuner Review - Overclockers Club

ATI All-In-Wonder HD Video Card Review – Legit Reviews

Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB Graphics Card Review – PC Perspective

Iiyama ProLite E2207WS 22in LCD Monitor Review – TrustedReviews

Intel IGP Chipset Showdown – GeForce 9300 mGPU vs. Intel G45 Comparison – Hardware Zone

NEC MultiSync 24WMGX3 Monitor Review – XSReviews

Palit Radeon HD 4870X2 Review – Bjorn3D

Philips Cineos 47PFL9603D 47in LCD TV – TrustedReviews

Samsung SyncMaster XL24 and XL30 Monitors Review – X-bit labs

Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 & 4550 Overclocked Video Card Review – AMDZone

Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512MB Video Card Review – The Tech Lounge

XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition – Techgage

Laptops and Netbooks

Asus G50VT Laptop Review – Digital Trends

Medion Akoya S5610 Notebook Review – TrustedReviews

Networking, Peripherals and Storage

JayBird JB-200 Bluetooth Stereo Headset Review – Legit Reviews

Linksys WRT610N Dual-N Wireless Router Review – ITreviewed

OCZ Technology Dominatrix Laser Gaming Mouse Review – Big Bruin

Patriot Warp V2 128GB 2.5″ Solid State Drive Review – TweakTown

Thecus N4100 PRO Four Bay NAS Review – TweakNews

Thermaltake Vi-On HDD Enclosure Review – Techware Labs

Vidabox Premium Wireless HTPC Media Center Keyboard with Laser Trackball Review – ThinkComputers

Software

Google Makes Scanned Documents Searchable – InformationWeek

Let’s Play: First Look at MSI Click BIOS – X-bit labs

Windows 7 DWM cuts memory consumption by 50% – istartedsomething

Windows 7 Scalable Enough To Support 256 Cores – HotHardware

Windows Home Server System Builder Software Price Decrease – MS TechNet

Windows Update Due Update — Again – PC World

Ubuntu 8.10 Is The Real Deal – CRN

If you’ve been delaying the purchase of a netbook over the lack of elite overclocking hacks MSI has got you covered. The company has rolled out an updated BIOS for their Wind netbook that allows for up to a 24% system overclock that can improve performance. Electric Vagabond has the details:

Recently MSI released the official 1.09 Bios on their website as the only downloadable bios – a big move that shows they endorse overclocking their machines, a feature that was left out of the Wind upon launch. This official bios release has all the features of the beta 1.08 bios (one-button 8%/15%/24%  automatic overclocking by pressing Fn+F10 on AC power and increasing available video memory) except with a few fixes: namely the Home, PgDn, PgUp and End keys are now functional, the Fn+Insert NumLock key allows you to use the numerical keypad and previous issues with sleep and hibernation have now been fixed.

Naturally, I have received a few requests to create a guide for the 1.09 bios as it looks like a few people are still experiencing some problems using various methods for the update (losing USB functionality amongst other things). I can confirm I have completed the upgrade on my MSI Wind U100 and everything works perfectly! To add to this success the computer actually performs BETTER on the 1.09 bios when compared to the 1.08 beta bios (which actually ran better than all previous bioses to boot!).

A nice little bonus for those constant tweakers out there.

Sony is plowing ahead with their insane update schedule for their PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable gaming consoles both of which should be receiving updates “soon”. Sony’s PlayStation blog has all of the details but here’s a short preview:

PSP (v5.00) update

Let’s start with the v5.00 update for PSP. In this version, you’ll
notice the addition of the PlayStation Network icon on the XMB. You can
now sign up for PlayStation Network, manage your account and access
PlayStation Store directly from your PSP – meaning you can download
games directly to your PSP while connected via Wi-Fi. Getting games,
demos and trailers while on-the-go has never been easier! Check out the
screen below

PS3 (v2.50) update

• Support for the PS3 Official Bluetooth Headset - we’ve told you about the upcoming Bluetooth Headset and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation Bundle on the Blog.
  This latest firmware installment enables High-Quality (HQ) mode, which
  delivers clear and wide-band online voice chat. On top of that, an
  added on-screen indicator shows battery status, volume level and use of
  HQ mode.
• PlayStation Trophies interface enhancements – I
  know that many of you are busy collecting trophies and raising your
  PlayStation Trophy level. This update makes sharing and comparing your
  trophies with your friends even easier. On 1st part of the profile page
  you’ll see a symbol under level that represents level and the actual
  percentage towards the next level along with the existing level meter.
  The level symbol carries over to the trophy comparison screen where you
  will now be able to see your level, your friend’s level and the
  percentage towards the next level for both users along with all of the
  game by game comparison information you see today.

Some extensive, and very much welcome, additions to both consoles.

Another week is upon us, here’s a few of the past week’s news and reviews making the rounds:

Gaming

Deus Ex 3 First Details – CVG

Fresh Batch of Resident Evil 5 Screenshots – Kotaku

Xbox 360’s Fall Update Games Store Makeover – 1UP

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Review – bit-tech

Software:

Linux Turned 17 Today – Linux Journal

Sansa Fuze gets FLAG and Ogg support via new firmware – DAPReview

Windows Vista to XP Downgrade Program Extended – The Register

Hardware:

HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX Review – bit-tech

Iiyama ProLite E2607WS 26″ Monitor Review – TrustedReviews

Nvidia 9800 GT SLI Performance Review – t-break

Sony’s High-End VAIO VGN-AW190 Notebook Reviewed – PC Magazine

Firmware updates are the “Christmas in Summer” for the geeky crowd, salivating over rumors of bug fixes and performance improvements giving that awesome placebo effect everyone loves regardless of the outcome. Apple’s iPhone 2.1 firmware update brings about bug fixes and, most importantly, may even extend battery life in some instances. AnandTech has a short test:

My 3G test happens to be reasonably stressful as it is constant web surfing, which I doubt anyone has the patience to do on something with such a small screen regardless of how great its UI may be. In the end, real world battery life may go up even more but I’d say 10% is a fair increase for a simple firmware update.

No stand by time testing but who keeps such a powerful device hidden away all day anyway.

CNET News is covering Microsoft and Intel’s push for a replacement to the BIOS dubbed EFI, or Extensible Firmware Interface. They also cover Phoenix Technologies’ plans in the BIOS replacement arena.

ETA: Mid 2004