The latest articles and reviews found at PC Perspective. http://www.pcper.com This week we talk about the Flash 10.1 beta, our AMD Radeon HD 5970 Review, the Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB SSD, the OCZ Coloussus 3.5" SSD, our MSI NF980-E65 Motherboard review, our hardware/software picks of the week and more!... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=411 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=411 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:00:12 -0500 While NVIDIA may not be taking SLI for the AMD market seriously anymore, luckily their partner MSI is. The NF980-E65 is the only triple SLI enthusiast board aimed at the AMD AM3 market, and they are hoping to capitalize on that distinction. The big question is... do they succeed in providing a motherboard for that niche worthy of your money?... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=819 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=819 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:00:36 -0500 Even though it has lost the 'X2' moniker, the latest dual-GPU graphics card from AMD is a graphics processing powerhouse we have not seen the likes of here before! By pairing up a set of Evergreen parts from the Radeon HD 5800-series, AMD's new HD 5970 is definitely the new king of the hill when it comes to PC gaming. Stop in to see how it fares as well as what you can expect with Eyefinity.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=820 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=820 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:49 -0500 Today we review not one but two of the new Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drives. Built on the excellent Intel SSD controller, these drives should perform well as compared to other low-cost offerings. We also tested a pair of them in RAID in an attempt to compete with Intel's 80GB offering. Can a pair of 40GB units best a single 80GB SSD? Come inside for the gouge.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=818 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=818 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0500 The new TX950W is targeted towards value conscious users who want a quiet, high-capacity power supply that provides stable outputs and high efficiency. Once again, Corsair delivers!... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=813 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=813 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:02 -0500 The positive press around Intel's P55 chipset and LGA 1156 platform has been all the rage and the accolades keep coming right into the holidays. Gigabyte was kind enough to send us their flagship P55 motherboard -- the P55-UD6. This particular board doesn't support USB 3.0 or SATA 6GB/s like some of its newer brethren, but it does have many overclocking and enthusiast-level features that should catch consumer's attention during the holiday season.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=800 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=800 Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:01 -0500 The gang at Lucid finally let us get our paws on some actually testing-ready hardware this week and I ran the configuration through some tests to see how it stood up compared to existing CrossFire and SLI systems. We also of course test cross-vendor performance and see how much scaling you can get when you combine the performance of a GTX 260+ and a Radeon HD 4890.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=815 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=815 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:00:56 -0500 Galaxy has been continuing to improve on product differentiation and quality and the company's new GeForce GTX 260+ Razor does it again with a single slot, air cooled design. This GPU offers all the performance of standard GTX 260+ GPUs but in a more condensed package that should make SFF and HTPC users smile.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=816 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=816 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:00:44 -0500 We spent some time recently with the team at GlobalFoundries to get an update on its status as an independent foundry company, its first and second customers, how the move to 32nm and 28nm is progressing and to speculate on what it means for the rest of the industry.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=814 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=814 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:03 -0500 Motherboards sporting Intel's new P55 chipset have been springing up all over the web as vendors start their holiday push for more market share in the mainstream motherboard arena. ASUS developed an entire arsenal of P55 boards to accommodate basic end users, gamers, enthusiasts, and even hardcore overclockers. One of their higher-end mobos that was unveiled was the P7P55D Deluxe, which is the subject of our review today.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=801 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=801 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:37 -0500 AMD hosted a select group of technology reviewers Nov. 3 at their LoneStar campus in Austin, Texas, to brief them on their next generation of notebooks featuring their new VISION technology.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=811 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=811 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:00:09 -0500 While Bulldozer and 32 nm processors from AMD will not show up for some time yet, AMD is taking off the wraps of a new revision of the 45 nm Deneb core. The X4 965 was a 140 watt TDP critter, and now it has been tamed to a slightly more manageable 125 watts. Let's see how this affects performance and overclocking!... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=812 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=812 Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:00:00 -0500 The thirst for High Definition content has now spread to audio on the PC. Asus is hoping to capitalize on this push by releasing a series of soundcards designed to be HDMI passthrough devices able to bitstream HD audio codecs such as TrueHD and DTS-HD. The HDAV 1.3 Slim is designed to be used in HTPCs of any size, and to be as transparent as possible to the user. Now... can Asus succeed there?... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=808 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=808 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:00:37 -0500 Left 4 Dead will be available next month but the early release of the demo prompted us to spend some time with it and a handful of graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA to see how they performed on this new gaming title. I think you'll find the results interesting and the gameplay exciting. Do you need to upgrade??... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=810 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=810 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:00:30 -0400 Everyone is talking about USB 3.0, but we are actually testing it. Read this article if you want to see how ASUS' first motherboard with integrated SATA 6G and USB 3.0 controllers performs against SATA-II and USB 2.0 devices. Is the hype surrounding USB 3.0 worth the hassle and how much is it going to cost you to upgrade?... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=809 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=809 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:11 -0400 SATA 6G technology is being paraded around by motherboard manufacturers as one of the main reasons to upgrade your motherboard in the coming months but do the advantages really make the upgrade worthwhile? And how do these current SATA 6G implementations actually work? We look at the ASUS P7P55D Premium and an early sample of a Seagate SATA 6.0 Gb/s hard drive to see how the hype stands up.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=807 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=807 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:00:40 -0400 Intel's latest Extreme Series offering is the long-awaited DP55KG motherboard that targets enthusiast-level users as well as hardcore gamers looking for a solid board that takes advantage of all the features available with the new Lynnfield LGA 1156 platform.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=798 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=798 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:00:08 -0400 Today Intel released a new firmware for their X25-M G2 line of SSD's. The firmware adds long awaited support for native TRIM, which should boost performance when used under Windows 7. Also released was an "SSD Toolbox" utility to view drive stats and bring TRIM-level performance to Windows XP and Vista. Check out the our full review for the details.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=805 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=805 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:00:00 -0400 The MSI P55-GD65 quickly became one of our favorite P55 motherboards when the Lynnfield processors first hit the scene last month. We finally have a review of the motherboard that looks at the features and overclocking ability of this motherboard to see where it stands in comparison to other P55 options on shelf.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=799 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=799 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:00:35 -0400 Right before Windows 7 hits the streets this week, we take a look at a Dell Studio One touchscreen PC that implements the improved touch capabilities included with the new operating system. The Dell system is a 19-in wide screen multi-touch capable all-in-one computer that uses an Intel Pentium CPU (yes that name continues) and an NVIDIA ION chipset. Come see if this PC will make you yearn for a monitor with fingerprints on it.... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=797 http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=797 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:00:05 -0400