This subject may be a bit off-topic for our site, but I think we have to talk about this, because Asustek is one of the largest hardware manufacturers on the planet, with almost 100,000 employees all over the world. The device advertised using the slogan "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play", the ASUS Eee PC subnotebook, to be more precise, proved to be a good move from the Taiwanese company, and now they are planning an entire line of Eee computers...

"It all started with a small, cheap and interesting subnotebook" - maybe this is going to be one of the first lines in the story of the Eee family to be written in a possible future, if things go well. If not, it's going to end with the subnotebook and its three followers - the desktop, the HDTV and the all-in-one PC.

First of all, the ASUS E-DT, or simply Eee DT is the next product of the Eee family to hit the market, and its target is to compete with small and cheap desktop PCs similar to the Mac Mini. Based on an Intel Celeron CPU, the computer should be priced somewhere between $200-$300 (the cheaper, the better, especially since there's a huge market to be exploited in emerging countries). This computer will use Linux and will be sold without a monitor.

The ASUS E-Monitor will have a 19-inch or 21-inch screen, should incorporate a TV-tuner, and is expected to arrive in September, for a price below $500, making it an interesting alternative to Apple's iMac or Dell's XPS One. Well, there may be a little problem here - the E-Monitor will also use Linux, and some users may keep away from it because of that...

At last, we have the Eee HDTV, a 42-inch LCD HDTV coming with a built-in PC based on...yeah, you got it - Linux! While this one is also expected to pop up in September, there is no additional information about it, but let's hope they are going to make it full HD-capable.

In the last months, I had a lot of discussions with many people about computer upgrades and the fact that currently, most users have much more processing power at their disposal than they need, and Asustek seems to have the same opinion but, unlike me, they have the power to make things right.

Last November, Jonney Shih, Asustek's CEO, said "Traditional PCs are too powerful, no matter in the home or office; we are seeing quad-core rising with octo-core coming in the near future, and the more cores in a CPU, the more memory the system needs. Is all this really necessary? With the Eee PC we decided to go back to basics, to bring the focus to just functions and reasonable price levels.".

These being said, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that, a year from now, the Eee PC will be the elder member of a big and happy family(if I didn't mention it so far, I will do it now - I just love the Eee PC)!

InnoVISION Multimedia Limited is a well known PC hardware developer and manufacturer from Hong Kong, established back in 1998, while their manufacturing operations started earlier, in Shenzen, China(1990). When talking about video cards(and sometimes, mainboards too), their Inno3D brand is well known, and includes a variety of 3D cards, but all current models bearing this name are using NVIDIA chipsets. From now on, things are going to change, since a new brand belonging to InnoVISION is born, its name being Force3D...

Practically, there are no big things to say about this move. Just as PcPartner uses two brands, Zotac for NVIDIA-based cards, and Sapphire for those using ATI GPUs, InnoVISION is going to have Inno3D for video cards using NVIDIA chips, and Force3D for those using ATI GPUs.

I don't know what others think, but for me, one thing seems certain - ATI is going up, and this will surely help AMD too. For now, I only have two questions that need to be answered in the coming months...

First, since Inno3D was a brand also used for a few motherboards that are using NVIDIA chipsets, should we expect Force3D mainboards with AMD/ATI chipsets, or they will stop at video cards only?

At last, no matter how good it feels for ATI fans to get an extra alternative available on the market, the big battle between ATI and NVIDIA should start in March, or a bit later, as soon as NVIDIA's 9xxx series is launched, especially the long-awaited 9800 GX2, the card expected to be the "3870X2 killer"...

Just a few days after ASUS launched its first video cards based on ATI's 3870X2 design, PowerColor came up with their own 3870X2 card, simply called PowerColor HD 3870X2 (nothing special about the name, I must add). This is a very hot card, because the press release came up only a few hours ago, so let's see what exactly do we have here, shall we?

The HD 3870X2 from PowerColor is a PCI-E 2.0 card with two cores clocked at 825MHz, and 1GB of DDR3 memory at 1.8GHz. It features a total of 640 stream processing units, has a 2X256-bit memory bandwidth and, obviously, also comes with full DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support. At last, you should know that, just like the reference design, this card has built-in HDMI and 5.1 surround audio, as well as Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for playing Blu-ray and HD DVD content.

Bundled with PowerColor HD 3870X2, you get their iClone 2 software, an application able to turn "any desktop into a complete virtual movie studio", and accessible to all users. At this time, the product doesn't show up on PowerColor's official site, but I am sure we'll see it there (and in stores) in a matter of days.

Yesterday, I told you about the EAH3870X2 series from ASUS, and now, as I promised, I am going to introduce you the first factory-overclocked video cards based on the HD3600 reference design from ATI, the EAH3650 TOP/HTDI/256M and the EAH3650/HTDI/256M.

Do you think the cooling system in the image above looks a bit different? Well, you are right, because ASUS equipped the EAH3650 series with the Glaciator Fansink, a custom cooling solution that keeps the GPU 12 Celsius degrees cooler than the reference design, allowing a slightly higher overclock too, probably(these are all informations from ASUS, so I can't guarantee that reality perfectly matches the above...).

The feature list starts with the now-obvious DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support, but there's a lot to say. According to ASUS, the 55nm core of the EAH3650 cards can be overclocked from 725MHz to 800MHz (for the EAH3650 TOP/HTDI/256M version), and from 800MHz to 900MHz (EAH3650/HTDI/256M). Both cards feature 256MB DDR3 memory, clocked at 1.6GHz for the TOP model, and 1.8GHz for the EAH3650/HTDI/256M.

Connectivity is extremely rich, with 2 DVI outputs, HDMI, HDCP, D-Sub, HDTV and TV output. Cables and adapters included are 3 in number - DVI to D-Sub adapter, DVI to HDMI adapter, and HDTV-out cable. Unfortunately, the bundle only includes the ASUS Utilities & Driver disk...

The unfortunate truth is that, apart from having excellent multimedia features, these overclocked 128-bit cards won't break any records when it comes to gaming, but they may prove excellent solutions for the low-end market. After all, not everyone's a gamer, but if you happen to get into the mood for playing some new title, these overclocked cards may just help you get things done...

Ladies and gentlemen, the beasts have been unleashed! I don't know about other producers, but ASUS launched a few days ago the EAH3870X2 series, together with the OC version of the HD3650. While I'll keep the lower performance card's story for tomorrow, you have to find out about the dual-GPU beast today, so here it is...

Lovely sight, don't you think? I know that NVIDIA fanboys are boiling in their own juices at this time, since the 9xxx series should arrive sometimes in March, and that only if they manage to keep up with the last promises, but for now, video cards using two ATI's RV670XT GPUs are going to deliver the best "bang for buck" ratio. Do you want to find out more details? Sure, it's my pleasure!

The new EAH3870X2 comes in two almost identical versions, one having 4 DVI outputs, and the other only 2. Other than that, we have DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support, while the DirectX 10 game Company of Heroes - Opposing Fronts and a nice "Leather CD Wallet"(I wonder if they are using real leather, because I got a great wallet with my X1950Pro card from ASUS, but I found out in the meantime that is not made of leather, but some synthetic stuff) are bundled in the package.

The EAH3870X2 has 1GB DDR3 0.8ns memory running at 1.8GHz, a 256-bit memory interface, and an engine clock of 825MHz. The card is HDCP compliant, and you get all possible outputs included (HDMI, D-Sub, HDTV, TV Output Adaptor/Cable). Also, a fact worth being mentioned is that "It also comes specially designed with dual fansinks for both GPUs – ensuring efficient heat dissipation.", so if ASUS did a good job with the cooling system, as they usually do, this card should run cooler than competing models from other vendors.

Regarding pricing and availability, I think best thing to do is check with your local ASUS retailer. Good luck!