SNIP: With DDR3 slow in gaining acceptance and the lackluster price to performance ratio more people are turning to less expensive Extreme Performance Enhanced Latency DDR 2 memory. Recently DDR2 memory has attained speeds thought impossible just a short time ago. With DDR2 speeds increasing and prices remaining reasonable its becoming an attractive option to stick with DDR2 running at speeds of up to 1200 Mhz (PC-9600) and Latencies in the Cas 5 range.

If youre in the market for a new router, you will find you have a lot of choices to pick from. There are literally dozens of manufacturers producing and selling them, and they nearly all look alike too. So when shopping for a new router how does one company go about differentiating their router from a sea of others that all look alike? Well, first of all, they stand it upright, give it a sleek black glossy finish and add an LCD screen on it. Had I not seen the word router next to the picture of the Belkin N1 Vision (and maybe the antennas) when I first saw it, I probably would not have known what it was. It was certainly intriguing as it instantly captured my attention. Here at Benchmark Reviews we have on hand the Belkin N1 Vision wireless N router for review.

Quote: Nikon today announced the D90 Digital SLR - successor to the D80. Its slated for availability some time (late?) September, at an ESP (estimated street price) of $999.95. At this point, I should mention that Im a Canon user. I love my 5D and my treasure chest full of expensive L lenses. Point being, Im so happy with Canon that its rare for me to get excited about anything from the Nikon camp. In fact, this is the first time my eyes have wandered. [Forgive me, Canon, tis but a fling.] Oh, and we got some exclusive footage of the D90s movie mode in action, courtesy of professional photographer, Chase Jarvis.

Today the need to have some means of external storage to not only backup your system but also to serve as a media server or FTP server is in high demand. A few years ago this type of storage was out of the reach of todays computer users. The Thecus N3200 Network Attached Storage (NAS) Device that we are reviewing today allows the user to configure the system in a number of different ways. For example it can be a file server, iTune or media server, FTP server to name just a few. So come on along as we put this device through its paces and explore the bevy of options it does provide.

Quote: I am not sure what market AMD is pushing the 780G at. I keep hearing how it games better than Intel yet if what I saw is considered better, I am afraid to take a look at the Intel offering. To put it plainly the 78GPM-DS2H is not a gaming board on its own. If you hook up Hybrid Crossfire then maybe you could play games with decent resolutions and eye candy, but not as it is.

Quote: This is the ATI counter-point to the 9800 GTX+: Sapphires Toxic HD 4850. It may be alone, and it may not be more power-friendly, but its, ahem, wickedly fast. The icing is that it doesnt really cost more than other HD 4850s--sure, its on the high side, but its still cheaper than a 4850 and a Zalman heatsink. The astounding thing is how closely the Toxic keeps up with an HD 4870, cards that cost close to a hundred dollars more.

*Quote:* Over the last year or so, the price of DDR2 memory has completely bottomed out, meaning many gamers and hardware enthusiasts have stuck with it, and by and large ignored the newer technology, DDR3. However, as prices of the new range start to come down, people are taking more of an interest. Today I have a kit from a little known company called as CSX, whove been kind enough to let us test their Diablo kit. A 2GB, 2GHZ pair of sticks, that come with a huge heatsink, with D9 chips underneath. Can they reach their rated 2000MHZ speed? Lets find out.

If you live in the USA and own a TV then you may be affected by th e upcoming switch to DTV. On February 17, 2009 the United States will shu t off all analog television signals and switch to digital, this means man y of you will turn on your TV and get nothing but fuzz. Before you panic read our editorial and find out how to avoid this problem.

Meh.

Snippet: We live in a very inter-connected world today, a world where more and more of our lives take place on the Internet. As a result, pieces of our lives, or at least breadcrumbs of where weâ€ve been and what weâ€ve been up to, are left on servers across the Internet. And to illustrate that point, let me relay a quick story from Gnomedex.

Quote: The GTX 260 is exceptionally powerful, quiet, even power-miserly. It too has dropped in price--you can find them for around $200 (!) with a rebate, anyway--although EVGAs FTW is... more. However, I believe that the price premium is totally fair with the Step-Up Program, warranty, and ridiculous overclocking potential. If the 280 is a heavyweight, then the 260 is a ninja. And everyone knows that ninjas are cooler.

*Quote:* *Today we will be looking at one of AMDs latest weapon in winning back the faithful who had lost their way and have been debating stepping into Intels camp. The weapon that we are referring to is the bug fixed X4 or to be more precise the 2.4ghz 9750 X4 in its B3 revision. In this review we are going to put the X4 through its paces, both in Windows XP and Vista to see what this new processor is made of and compare it against the venerable Q6600.

There were only few of us who could only guess that CPU air cooler GeminII will get its S version, just like it was the case with Cosmos case. GeminII S is possible to mount on every, at the moment, popular platform but we didnt expect anything less from Cooler Master. That implies support for Intel LGA 775 or AMD 939/940/AM2 sockets. What we really liked is traditional metal black plate that we saw on Hyper Z600 model (frankly it was necessary for previous GeminII model).

Controller. Below is a direct quote from the review: Until now, these two worlds have gone surprisingly separate ways with their cases and peripherals the flashy-type modders had their bright, intense LCD screen fan controllers, while the classier of builders had the plain vanilla, brushed aluminum rheobus. Today, however, we have for review NZXTs Sentry LX fan controller, which hopes to break that divide. Inset in a classy, brushed aluminum faceplate is a bright, detailed screen. This has potential to be the best of both worlds.

Ian takes a look at the VIZO Ninja II Laptop cooler to find out if it can cool his MacBook Pro cool. The Ninja II is an all aluminum cooler outfit with dual 80mm fans for some serious airflow. Find out if Ian man aged to let the magic smoke loose or if the Ninja II did its job silently .

Quote: Acer isnt Samsung, but its small, sub-$200 X193W+BD should get a serious once-over by the gaming portion of the market. The size difference means fast-switching .243mm pitch pixels (in this case, smaller is better) that betray the municipal looks of this panel. At 19, its a versatile, high-resolution display that excels in value.

Bernard believes that 3D technology will change the way products are created and used a demo of shopping software that allows you to see p roducts on the store shelves without being there. He actually went as far as saying that everything we do online should be in 3D! He spoke about d oing online 3D searches, which is something very interesting...

Quote: We use them on a daily basis but its obvious that lots of people have a bunch of questions when it comes to monitor technologies. For instance, what is display resolution? What is aspect ratio and what is dot pitch? To get to the bottom of these terminologies, read on...

The ECS P45T-A is a fantastic price/performance motherboard and I have faith that it will continue to run at stock speeds until the end of time. This board is perfect for a budget gaming board, a secondary LAN b oard, or even an office workstation. Couple this board with CrossFire HD4 850s and 4 gigabytes of DDDR2 and you are looking at a strong gaming pla tform...

Looking for high end performance on a low end budget? We take a lo ok at the new 790GX chipset from AMD which promises features that allow y our system to grow with you if you find yourself in need of more agressiv e performance over time. Is the 790GX worth considering for your next rig ? Find out what Matt had to say about this board from Asus.