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iBUYPOWER launches new Paladin 998 performance gaming desktop

iBUYPOWER, known for it’s innovative and powerful gaming PCs, is excited to launch its newest gaming rig – the Paladin 998. Housed in a Cooler Master Haf Gaming case, the new Paladin 998 packs a powerful punch with an Intel Core 2 Quad Processor (Q9550), 4GB DDR-3 1333 memory and a 500GB SATA-2 7200 rpm hard drive Read more

GeForce 9500 GT ZONE Edition GPU from ZOTAC

The GeForce 9500 GT got of to a slow start so it needs something to give it a big boast. Well ZOTAC are giving it a go with the GeForce 9500 GT ZONE Edition GPU.

As we know the old graphics card suffered from poor performance as well as a high price tag. One of the first improvements on the card was a HDMI port; this was a start of better things.

ZOTAC has now made the card stand out more now by clocking the card and increasing cooling. Let us see what Tweaktown thought with their full review of the ZOTAC GeForce 9500 GT ZONE Edition GPU.

NEC LaVie C and J notebooks: Wireless USB and Blu-ray

NEC is to launch two new notebooks, both with a 16 Inch LCD with a resolution of 1366×768. Firstly we have the LaVie C and secondly the LaVie J.

The LaVie C has a 2.26GHz Centrino2 CPU and 2GB of RAM. The notebook has the GeForce 9600 GS graphics card with 256MB as well as a Blu-ray disc player.

The LaVie J has a few different features, one being the wireless USB. The notebook is powered by a U7600 CPU and also comes with a 160GB Hard Drive and 2GB of RAM.

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Other new on NEC

Hands-on: Point of View GeForce 9500 GT Graphics Card

This is the Point of View GeForce 9500 GT graphics card and its been given a hands on review by Tweak Town. In their final thoughts they had this to say “It wasn’t looking good for Point of View when the sample arrived, but the bottom line is pulling the card out of the box and seeing that HDMI port brought a whole new perspective to the card Read more

Hands On: Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Graphics Card

The HD 4870 Sonic Graphics Card has performed much better than anyone had ever imaged from the word go. We are never satisfied with what we have and neither was Palit which is why they have overclocked the Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Graphics Card.

Like so many gamers you will want to know how much faster this GPU is now that it has received an increase in performance. Tweaktown has decided to put the cars through its paces. Read more

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+: Overclocked Graphics Card

Here we have the XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ Graphics Card, for those of you who are in the know you will understand that the 9800 GTX+ is just an overclocked version of the 9800 GTX.

For those of you who would like to know a little more about this graphics card, then Tweaktown have done an extensive review on it. Here are some of their final thoughts on what they thought of the XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+. Read more

ViewSonic 120Hz VX2265wm LCD Prototype revealed

NVIDIA needed a decent screen to show of just how good their new NVISION graphics card is. To help show the performance of the new GPU off ViewSonic thought that it would be a perfect time to show of their new ViewSonic 120Hz Computer LCD Prototype.

The new VX2265wm LCD has a 22-inch screen; it uses the same kind of technology used on HDTV’s. It doubles the 60Hz refresh rate than that of most LCD screens on the market.

By offering 120Hz, blurring and ghosting is almost eliminated offering you superb image quality. The end result is an unrivaled gaming experience.

The ViewSonic VX2265wm supports stereoscopic 3D and also comes with dual-link DVI input. This is the perfect solution for those using cards from the NVIDIA range as well as other GPU’S that need the extra bandwidth for extra dimension.

Do not expect anything special from the speakers as they produce just 4 watts of stereo sound.

The ViewSonic VX2265wm LCD computer screen will ship later this year; as yet there are no pricing details.

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ASUS GeForce GTX 280: clocked for speed

The ASUS GeForce GTX 280 was in most purposes a very good graphics card, but ASUS must have thought that the there was a lot more to come from the GPU. They have decided to turns things up a little and try and get some more speed from the card.

As the price of the GTX 280 has fallen over recent weeks, it has now become more affordable. This means that people who want that top gaming experience is now within reach.

Those guys at Tweaktown have been putting the ASUS GeForce GTX 280 through its paces, and here are their final thoughts on it. ASUS continue to impress with graphics card release after graphics card release by actually offering an out-of-the-box overclock that makes a difference to performance in games. The actual overclocks they offer on these cards tend to be the difference between upping the AA or AF up a notch or moving from high to very high detail settings.

While it would have been nice to see a game included in the bundle, the mouse pad and CD wallet is a nice touch. Of course, we also get all the other necessary cables we need to get up and running.

Performance is ultimately what this range of cards is about, though, and ASUS has managed to execute this perfectly. The card really manages to scream along and helps give the GTX 280 even more performance, making it overtake the 9800 GX2 for the most part in times where it used to just sit behind it.

If you don’t want to venture down the dual-GPU path, you’re not too concerned about money and want the fastest single cored graphics card on the market, the GTX 280 TOP from ASUS is going to be one card that’s hard to pass up.

Other Asus News

Hands-on: Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic Graphics Card

This is the Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic graphics card with some ramped up clock speeds; it’s a nice HD 4850 with a decent aftermarket cooler and a high clock speed. If only Palit did a bit more with the memory clock, there’s no doubt it would have been able to shine a bit brighter.

Tweak Town have given this graphics a 18 page hands-on review, and in their final thoughts they said “There’s no doubt that we’re going to see more and more HD 4850s with aftermarket cooling hit the market. The Palit is a nice little option that comes with a decent cooler, which helps keeps temps down whilst offering a decent overclock on the core Read more

Hands-on: ATI Catalyst 8.8 Analysis - Windows XP & Vista

AMD has just released ATI Catalyst 8.8, how does this driver for Radeon graphics cards perform under Microsoft Windows Vista and XP? This is just what Tweak Town aimed to find out.

They covered the details over a 12-page review and in their final thoughts they Read more

Hands-on: ASUS GeForce EN9600GT Matrix Graphics Card

This is the ASUS GeForce EN9600GT Matrix graphics card that is an excellent performing 9600 GT, its packed to the brim with features like HDMI, Optical, Power Saving technology and an excellent aftermarket cooler.

Tweak Town have reviewed this 9600 GT card over 18 pages, and in their final thoughts they said “ASUS has managed add a few nice little tweaks to the card to make it stand out compared to other 9600 GT cards that we’ve looked at over the past few months Read more

Hands-on: ASUS Radeon HD 4870 TOP 512MB Graphics Card

This is the ASUS Radeon HD 4870 TOP 512MB graphics card that comes with a good out-of-the-box overclock. It’s a great option for people who are looking to get a bit more performance without taking the time to overclock the card themselves.

Tweak Town have given the card a full hands-on review over 18 pages and in their final thoughts they said “The HD 4870 continues to show its value time and time again and this time around is really no different. The good overclock on the core along with the slight memory Read more

Hands-on: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 280 Graphics Card

This is the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 280 graphics card that’s fast and priced well. If you want to get into the GTX 280 without breaking your wallet, the GIGABYTE is a good choice.

Tweak Town have given this graphics card a hands-on review over 18 pages and in their final thoughts they said “As mentioned in another GTX 280 reviews, if this card was reviewed a few weeks earlier the overall thought process on the card would be completely different. But thanks to the recent price drop, the GTX 280 really begins to resemble a bit of value for money Read more

Hands-on: Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition

This is the Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition card and it’s a HD 4870 that has one purpose; to run as fast as it possibly can. Diamond has done a fantastic job with this card.

Tweak Town have given this graphics card a full test over 17 pages, and in their final thoughts they said “Diamond have managed to pull some serious speed out of the already fast HD 4870; the massive increase in memory clock speeds really manages to give us a serious boost in performance, making it compete against the GTX 280 in a lot of tests Read more

Extreme Liquid Cooling for ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Cards

CoolIT Systems, the leading innovator in liquid cooling technology, announces the Dual Drive Bay VGA Cooler designed to aggressively cool AMD’s new ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 Graphics card. The unique form factor enables extreme computing performance for PC Enthusiasts and Gamers.

In recent testing, the liquid cooled cards were stably clocked up to 880MHz (13.5% Increase) core clock speed and the GDDR5 memory pushed to 1GHz (11% increase) Read more

Hands-on: ECS GeForce 9600 GT Graphics Card

This is the ECS GeForce 9600 GT graphics card and it also includes a free game; Frontlines: Fuel of War. It’s an excellent 9600 GT for people living in the U.S. who are looking for a graphics card that comes with a game they might actually want.

Tweak Town have given this graphics card a hands-on review over 18 pages, and in their final thoughts they said “The 9600 GT really has become a great valued product for people who are gaming on older monitors capable of only 1280 x 1024 with high detail. If you’re happy to drop the detail to the medium levels, though, you should get a decent game experience as high as 1680 x 1050, which is great news for 22″ wide screen gamers Read more

Hands-on Review: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 260 Graphics Card

Many graphics cards drop in price after a given time like the GTX 280 for example, well it looks like the GTX 260 graphics card is going down the same road. Read on for the low-down on the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 260 Graphics Card.

With the GTX 260, NVIDIA really have managed to tie up most of the price brackets. Working in AUD, the under $150 bracket has the 9600 GT, $150 - $200 you can pick up a 9800 GT, $200 - $300 will get you a 9800 GTX+, over $300 can get you the GTX 260 while at the $500+ mark you can get yourself a GTX 280.

Really, the only price bracket that isn’t covered is around the $400 mark. We’re sure NVIDIA have something up their sleeves, though. The current price on the GTX 260 is pretty attractive these days, thanks to recent price drops and its performance against the other NVIDIA cards giving us a good idea of where the card sits on the market.

If you do have the money and you’re happy to spend it, we would probably suggest the GTX 260 over the 9800 GTX+; this for a few reasons, mainly. We have some more memory, it’s built on newer technology and it’s the most recent NVIDIA release which makes us tend to think that NVIDIA are going to be working hard to increase performance on these cards more so then the older models through the means of driver updates.

While the GIGABYTE card doesn’t offer us a huge bundle or anything, it does what it’s supposed to do; give us a good performing graphics card for a decent price. By avoiding all the extras like HDMI convertors and games, GIGABYTE can keep the price down.

The GTX 260 is definitely a good card in this price bracket and for people on SLI based motherboards we know that two of these cards are just going to absolutely fly along for only slightly more than a single GTX 280.

Read the full 18-page hands-on review of the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 260 Graphics Card over on TweakTown

Sony Vaio VGCLS30E All-in-One Desktop PC

There is no denying that the Sony Vaio VGCLS30E is a great All-in-One Desktop PC. This computer is compact in its design but still offers high-performance thanks to its Intel 1.7GHz Dual Core Processor.

The PC is hidden well inside the 19-inch LCD monitor. The frame of this PC has an elegant design, one that we are not that familiar with from PCs. If you love to have your technology on show, then this should be your center piece.

The specifications of the Sony Vaio VGCLS30E All-in-One Desktop PC show that it is a powerful system. Firstly we have the 1.73GHz Intel Pentium dual-core processor with 533MHz front side bus and 1MB L2 cache.

The hard drive is a 250GB7200 RPM SATA, then we have 2GB of RAM as well, so this PC is no slouch. The graphics card used is the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400.

Woot currently have the Sony Vaio VGCLS30E All-in-One Desktop PC for $799.99

Hands-on: Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 in CrossfireX

There have been so many graphics cards released over the last few months like the one we talked about the other day which was the GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4850, now there is the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 in CrossfireX that boasts two HD 4870 cores on a single PCB. Will this be the graphic cards of all graphic cards?

The HD 4870 X2 performance isn’t really much of a surprise; it’s two HD 4870s clocked at exactly the same speed on a single PCB. For the most part we see the card performing almost in line with a pair of standard 4870s.

The thing is, though, that the P45 chipset from Intel at the moment is one of the hottest pieces of kit, thanks to the massive overclocks it’s achieving. The only problem with the chipset is that it doesn’t come with two PCI-E x16 slots; most configurations are x8 / x8 which actually hits the performance of two cards quite considerably.

If you find yourself a bit of an AMD fanboy (or fangirl) in the graphics card department, a single HD 4870 is still going to score behind a single GTX 280 consistently, meaning that you’re not buying the fastest graphics card available. And while a pair of HD 4870s would be great, the performance hit from not having a x16 / x16 configuration is just too much to justify the associated cost vs. performance increase.

Thanks to the release of the HD 4870 X2, this is something you don’t need to worry about anymore. It really is great news for people who want a super fast graphics card solution from AMD in their P45 rig.

Unfortunately Crossfire X still has issues, but hopefully the AMD driver team is still working hard on new drivers. It’s not something that we would rush out and do at the moment, or even recommend to most people.

The HD 4870 X2 is an excellent card and it really gives you the chance to buy a P45 board confidently. With the HD 4870 X2 I can now build a new system that will overclock extremely well, thanks to the ability of using the very fast P45 platform. It’s also an added bonus for a lot of people in that it’s cheaper than its X48 brother.

There wasn’t really anything else AMD could do with the HD 4870 X2; no doubt over the coming weeks we will see companies overclock the card and hopefully we will see companies like ASUS go for a new cooling arrangement just to mix it up a bit more. But on a whole, AMD have done a lot right with this card, including the fact that they didn’t downclock the core or the memory from the already very impressive HD 4870.

Like we said before, Crossfire X still has some issues, but the ability for big performance is there with a minimum FPS count of 25 in World in Conflict at 2560 x 1600 with 4x AA and 16x AF. I think my own personal mission over the coming days or weeks will be to crack that 30 FPS minimum mark with a pair of HD 4870 X2s in hand. With a bit of overclocking on both the CPU and the graphics cards, it should be doable.

Without forgetting the company behind the sample, Sapphire have done a decent job with the package by including a number of applications, including a full version copy of 3DMark Vantage.

The HD 4870 X2 is going to quickly become a popular card among people at launch and hopefully can allow AMD to become a fearsome force in the graphics card arena once again over the next 12 months.

Now we just have to see how NVIDIA are going to retaliate; it’s doubtful that they’re just going to sit back and watch AMD enjoy the sales of their new card.

Read the full 18-page review over on TweakTown

HP EliteBook 8730w Mobile Workstation with DreamColor

Today at SIGGRAPH 2008, HP expanded its DreamColor technology portfolio with the introduction of a powerful mobile workstation – the HP EliteBook 8730w Mobile Workstation with DreamColor Display – that offers professionals exceptional color accuracy.

In addition, HP introduced the HP EliteBook 8530w Mobile Workstation, the HP EliteBook 8530p Notebook PC, a customer calibration kit for the now-shipping DreamColor LP2480zx Professional Display, and two additional high-performance displays to meet the demands of a new generation of visual computing customers Read more

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