"It's that time of year again and Christmas is around the corner. The year's hottest games are about to be released and it's time to look at new Tech Toys to make your year's gaming experience the best it can be. This year we decided to go with a price point comparison of two of the best GPU's out there, the Nvidia GTX-260 Core 216 vs the ATI 4870 1 GB edition in a head-to-head 5 game Hottest Title Shootout. Both of the selected GPU's are at the same price point roughly $300 (USD). The ATI card has 1GB of memory and the Nvidia card has 896MB of memory, and it's going to matter. We're testing at uber resolutions for this shootout. The lowest resolution is 1920x1200 and the highest resolution is 2560x1600 with AA set at 4x and AF set by the game."

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"If all goes according to plan, the first alpha release for Ubuntu 9.04 (the Jaunty Jackalope) will be released tomorrow. It's not even been one month since the release of Ubuntu 8.10, but this first alpha release will show early signs of what we can expect to see in this next Canonical-sponsored release -- albeit many of the features are still in planning. In this article we will provide a glimpse at what Ubuntu 9.04 should hold in store to captivate Linux desktop users."

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"Asus has always been one of the computer industry's leading innovators, being the first to field many new ideas and support new platforms. The introduction of Core i7 is no exception. Asus had initial offerings of X58 Core i7 motherboards in production before Core i7 even made market. Their early jump on the socket 1366 Core i7 platform shows heavily in the Asus P6T Deluxe. No features were overlooked, nothing was skimped on, and they fielded a fully functional, feature rich board capable of driving SLI and Crossfire on demand so that you don't have to be afraid that better motherboards will come out later. They might come out with other motherboards, but we seriously doubt any will come out better or stronger than the Asus P6T Deluxe."

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"All in all, the BlacX is a fine piece of hardware. Solid construction, hot –swap capability, and good looks go a long way. Installation is a straight forward affair, with no surprises or hiccups. I was impressed by the speed over USB, though your mileage may vary."

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"A lot of enthusiasts set aback by the high cost of the current generation of GPU's are looking for GPU's that will still provide good FPS in demanding games, but are a little more pocket friendly. That usually means the last generation of GPU's which still provide plenty of punch, just not in the pocket. We're reviewing a single XFX 9800GTX+ Black Edition, but with the scaling improving on SLI a couple of these beauties on a 775 or 1366 socket board would yield pretty sweet results."

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"Considering how the XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition already has a significant overclock I wasn't expecting much in the way of overclocking headroom. That being said, the results were incredible. I was able to get the core up to 739Mhz, the shaders up to 1557MHz, and the memory up to 1285MHz. This was a 73MHz core overclock, 153MHz shader overclock, and a 286MHz memory overclock."

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"For Linux desktop users interested in a mid-range discrete graphics card there are more choices than ever before with NVIDIA continuing to release new stable Linux drivers as they have done for many years while AMD this year has been making evolutionary leaps compared to their earlier state. AMD is now providing same-day support with all new products, CrossFire on Linux, OverDrive, and many other recently introduced features. NVIDIA and AMD are nearly at a feature parity and even in the past two months they both released new video APIs for Linux (PureVideo / VDPAU and X-Video Bitstream Acceleration, respectively) and they are now battling it out on Linux over performance. We recently looked at AMD's new ATI Radeon HD 4830 mid-range graphics card, but in this article we are comparing it to the NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT, courtesy of Micro-Star International."

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"It goes without saying: Internet radio is cool, and so are Internet radios. Don't comprehend the distinction? Head to your local CE retailer and lay your hands on sweet devices like the Sanyo R227. It looks like a tabletop radio because, well it is. But the device is also Ethernet-enabled, so you can tune into thousands of Internet radio stations just as you would through your desktop browser. Or rather, it's almost that easy - but we'll get to that story in just a minute."

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"If you are looking for an extremely compact and stylish portable hard drive, the new Seagate Free Agent Go series is definitely worth checking out. While the aesthetics are a strong selling point, Seagate didn't sacrifice the performance in order to produce a pretty product. It may not offer the high speed transfers available with an eSATA drive, but the USB 2.0 interface performed quite respectably during testing."

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"In this age of computers, a power supply unit is often times an overlooked part of the computer, but if you decide to cheap out and your whole system gets fried you will be hating yourself because of that decision. Often times it is hard to decide on a PSU. You don't want to waste money on getting too much wattage if you don't need to use it. But then again, you also don't want to come up short and not have enough juice to run everything in your PC. Today, Corsair brings us a 1000 watt PSU that offers spectacular reliability and plenty of power to run whatever you please. Corsair backs this PSU with an almost unheard of 5 year warranty, so you can be pretty sure that this will most likely not be the component in your system to give out during an intense gaming session."

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"Today we are looking at MotorStorm Pacific Rift for the Sony PS3. The game is the follow-up to the immensely popular MotorStorm title that hit shelves shortly after the PS3 launched. MotorStorm Pacific Rift offers many more tracks than the original along with a new vehicle and a new setting. The game is top notch and sure to be a welcome addition to any PS3 owners library."

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"The most popular computer case designs get licensed out to other manufacturers all the time, so it's not surprising that Cooler Master has re-launched the ATCS 840 after their own previously modeled design. The full-tower RC-840 chassis is built on the principal of cooling performance, which is where it receives its name. ATCS stands for Advanced Thermal Cooling Solution, and the RC-840 has more than enough room inside to accomplish this task in short order. In this articles, Benchmark Reviews tests the black aluminum-alloy RC-840-KKN1-GP model and explores the various configurations gamers and enthusiasts can expect from this enclosure."

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"With processor, graphics and storage technologies rushing ahead at breakneck speed, this year's holiday shoppers will have more tech on tap for less money than they could have dreamed a year ago. Ultra-premium hardware that used to be reserved for dream systems, like solid-state drives, has plummeted in price, and computers that started as inexpensive toys, like netbooks, have sprouted more and more features, turning into real, viable PCs. Here are a few unique systems to make sure to check out on store shelves."

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"As the first Blackberry clamshell phone ever, the Pearl Flip is designed for a specific cross-section of mobile users: Those who don't really need a full QWERTY keyboard. Note that the original Pearl, still a viable alternative, started the trend of predictive type, where the truncated keypad automatically fills in words and letters as you enter them. The good news, of course, being that The Flip is just as useful. As long as, that is, you don't mind a steep learning curve."

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"Today we are going to get a bit more familiar with some of the more interesting HD4850-offerings. All of these cards feature an improved cooler, higher frequencies and better performance than the reference cards."

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"When a phone call did come in, it registered quickly by pausing any music that was being played and playing a distinct ring tone. Incredibly, very few people could tell that I was on a Bluetooth headset – let alone one that was embedded in some Oakley sunglasses. Even when on the bike, the Motorola electronics did a great job of filtering out wind noise and enhancing my voice when on a call. The Oakley O ROKR Pro has to be one of the best performing Bluetooth headsets we have had the pleasure of testing..."

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"It has been a while since last looking at a Thermaltake chassis at Phoronix, but today we have our hands on the Spedo Advance Chassis. This full tower chassis is made of SECC steel and has seven 5.25"

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"With Core i7 ready for the vendors, memory vendors are hitting the shelves with Triple Channel DDR3 kits in a big way. We wanted to get a few kits tested and the information out there for early adopters. The early kit we got from Samsung running at 1066MHz was just a glimpse at the future of DDR3. Bandwidth was looking great with the lower speed kit, but we wanted to see how sweet it could get."

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"Fear not my enthusiast brethren, in our second publication we will be covering all that you asked for and more as we review the Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition (XE). We have now had sufficient time to spend with Core i7 series and our knowledge base on these processors and their supporting components has grown exponentially. In our first article, Intel Core i7 CPU & DX58SO X58 Platform we covered most of the available information regarding both the Nehalem Technology and the architecture used with the Intel Core i7 Processor family. We will therefore not repeat that discussion, instead; our goal today is to spend most of our energy concentrating on those features and performance aspects of the Intel Core i7-965XE that have led it and its other i7 kin to be dubbed "The Fastest Processor on the Planet" by Intel."

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"Gelid has a very worthy product in the Silent Spirit, especially for the debut offering of a new company. The Silent Spirit easily bests the performance of the OEM cooler while being noticeably quieter, even at full speed."

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