22’’ monitors can’t really display true 1080p content. OK, we’ll go for a 27” monitor, or a 30”… 37”? An HDTV would be nice. Whatever size you choose, keep in mind that if you want to be using the display as a PC monitor and a TV at the same time, you might be bumping into some problems. I use my 37” HDTV as a monitor and Vista won’t recognize it as a 1080p monitor unless I play with some drivers. I tell you, it gets pretty annoying when you reinstall Vista that often. I could use a video card that enables 1080p resolutions with plug&play capabilities and that’s exactly what Asus prepares for people like me.

The upcoming Asus Splendid HD1 video card is said to increase picture quality for HD content, as well as bringing true HDMI with audio and HDCP. 1080p content won’t be a problem anymore, thanks to the implementation of Asus' proprietary Splendid technology. Another interesting capability is the enhancement of color and dynamic contrast for photos. The included "Game Mode" will provide a better experience for FPS gamers.

In addition, the card can be set to run in “Demo mode” so users can compare the results and the experience of this card on different platforms. However, this card is only available in combination with Asus' discrete graphics card range, as an add-on. No word on pricing and availability for now.

Remember the good old days when S3 Trio was the most popular card on the market? In the meantime, S3 lost the race, and now they have just released their first DirectX 10 card for the low-end segment, but packing some interesting features, all for a good price. Do you feel they deserve another chance? Well, let's see why should S3 get another chance...


For now, we're talking only about one card - the Chrome 430 GT, which should be available in a single place, for now - here. Why did I say "should be"? Well...it's not! Currently, I see a message saying "Out of stock", but I guess we'll see this card showing up pretty soon.

The whole deal is this - the 65nm GPU Chrome 430 GT comes with a core clocked at 625MHz, 256 MB of 64-bit slow DDR2 memory running at 500MHz, but features DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support, and a bunch of multimedia features, such as Blu-Ray playback, H.264, VC-1, MPEG2-HD, AVS, and DivX Support. To top all the above, this card is Windows Vista Premium Certified, and according to the graph on the official page, it beats the Radeon HD 3450 and NVIDIA's 8400GS cards in 3DMark2006 by a significant margin.

If this card would have been here one year ago, maybe its chances to grab some market share were completely different. Now, I think the low-end graphics market will go to AMD, considering their excellent onboard solution and the possibility to have a cheap gaming system with Hybrid Crossfire for an excellent price, but I guess S3's new card may find its customers, considering its unique multimedia capabilities for the given price range.

If you're still proud of your high-end DDR2 memory, than I have to give you some bad news today - more and more producers are moving to the DDR3 standard, and no matter how good are those low-latency DDR2 kits, in less than a year, I guess that only a few new boards will come with support for this standard, at least those designed for Intel processors.


Today, we'll talk about Qimonda's Aeneon XTUNE kit. As you can see above, these memories look pretty cool, but this is not about the looks, because the XTUNE kit was designed especially for the nForce 790i Ultra SLI-powered boards, both 1GB modules being rated to work at 1600MHz with CL9 timings, and using only 1.5Volts.

Fortunately, EPP2 support allows you to run these memories on lower timings, enhancing the bandwidth and latencies, but everything has a price. Qimonda's Aeneon XTUNE DDR3 2X1GB kit has a price somewhere around $340, but you get a pretty good deal for your money, if you want to follow the DDR3 path already!

Solid state drives are slowly becoming a part of the IT landscape that won't make anyone go "Wow!", but solid state cooling is a very interesting and new concept, and since it looks to be a much better option for the future than MSI's powerless cooler, I am sure you'll also find this topic something worth checking out, as I do...


First, there was simply a processor inserted in its slot. Then, as speed increased, a heatsink was added. Later, this heatsink got a fan on top to help keeping the temperatures low. As speed and heat produced by processors kept going up, heatsinks with heat pipes were introduced, while using new materials to manufacture the heatsinks, such as copper. Now, we finally got a solit state fan!

Dan Schlitz and Vishal Singhal, engineers at Thorrn Micro Technologies Inc., have developed a cooling sistem that works similarly to domestic air purifiers. As far as we know, this fan is more efficient than air fans 35 times its size, operating thanks to the corona wind phenomenon.

This invention, tagged as "One of the most significant advancements in electronics cooling since heat pipes. It could change the cooling paradigm for mobile electronics.", is able "to cool a 25-watt chip with a device smaller than 1 cubic-cm and can someday be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips," but I am sure we'll have to wait at least a few years until the solid state cooler becomes available for everyone's use...

As previously announced, the NVIDIA 9800 GX2 was released yesterday, and almost at the same time, a bunch of notorious hardware producers released their own 9800 GX2 boards, so let's see what can you get for your money (not recommended for low budget users, unfortunately...), shall we?


Basically, all new NVIDIA 9800 GX2 cards feature 1GB of memory, 256 stream processors, and a 512-bit memory interface. Obviously, all these cards use the new PCI Express 2.0 interface, but pricing is a bit off the line, for now. Why?

Well, most producers claim the performance is about 30 to 50 percent higher than the current performance leader, GeForce 8800 Ultra, but since you have to pay around $500-$600 for a 9800 GX2, when a 3870 X2, although a bit slower, is priced around $400, the GeForce 9800 GX2 may not be the best deal you can get, no matter if the card in your scope has been manufactured by BFG, Asus, eVGA or MSI.

At last, I should add that most models have a core clock speed of 600MHz, and the memory runs at 2GHz. Ovbviously, you can link together two such cards for a 4-way SLI configuration, but that would be more expensive than a basic gaming computer, and I don't know how many would really consider doing this now, when the prices are sky high, waiting to fall...