Grabbing a video card for a mid-range gaming computer is really a gruesome task these days, because there are a lot of options from both ATI and NVIDIA. Basically, I am thinking about the $150-$200 price range, maybe a few extra bucks, depending on your location. Anyway, considering that most card based on the HD 3870 GPU from ATI are priced below $190 and can provide a serious punch for your buck, today I will tell you some things you should know about a few (very!) interesting choices belonging to this family, Sapphire's Radeon HD 3870 cards.


First, we should make clear some things about all the Radeon HD 3870 cards you may find on the market. As we speak, you may find on some sites the HD 3870 classified as an "enthusiast/high-end" card, but I completely disagree with this. The HD 4000 series is knocking at the door, and the HD 3870 X2 is way above the single-GPU HD 3870, at least in some games/applications, so this is leaving the HD 3870 as the most powerful single-GPU ATI card, but not powerful enough to beat quite a few cards from NVIDIA.

Regarding pricing, the HD 3870 is going slowly towards the $150 tag, which is a great deal for a card that was released less than a year ago, for about 3 times that amount. Anyway, arriving to our topic, Sapphire HD 3870, you can still get the single-slot cooled Atomic edition, which comes with a very rich bundle, inside a custom aluminum case, and for a price that will blow your socks off(somewhere around $350-$400, I guess).

Now, let me give you the complete Sapphire HD 3870 lineup:

- SAPPHIRE ATOMIC HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Single Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Dual Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Dual Slot Fansink SP (Sold out, according to the official Sapphire site)
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Single Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE TOXIC HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
- SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E

While all these cards come with DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1 and CrossFireX support, as well as hardware processed 1080p video playback for Blu-ray and HD DVDs, the differences between them are made by the cooling system, memory type, core/memory frequencies and the bundle package.

Considering the above, you can't go wrong with any of the above, because the difference in terms of performance between the slowest and the fastest card in the list is probably around 7%-10%, the most.

Do you want benchmark results? Well, I'll give you a hint on them a bit later, because now I have to finish telling you about the feature list of the HD 3870 GPU. Just remember the fact that you won't play benchmarks, but real games, so those 3dmark scores won't do any good for you, as long as games won't run properly.

This is what I didn't tell you yet about the HD 3870:

- 320 stream processing units
- PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
- 256-bit GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
- 512-bit Ring Bus Memory Controller
- ATI PowerPlay™
- ATI Avivo™ HD Video and Display Platform
- Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support
- Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved quality

At last, I should tell you that I don't have any HD 3870 around, because it would be a pleasure to run some tests on such a board for you, but have no fear - you can find out more about the Sapphire ATI RADEON HD 3870 cards from our friends. Just click the link above...

Summer is getting near, and apart from going to the beach and hunt some bikini babes, you should also be careful with your computer's cooling. In fact, if you don't have any beach close, and all the hot chicks in the area are nowhere to be seen, grabbing a coloured cooler for your computer should do the trick, as long as seeing a nice piece of hardware instead of nature's beauties is OK with you...


The Thermaltake X5 Orb FXII, pictured above, is a cooler measuring 140mm x 84 mm, with a weight of 591 grams, made from an aluminum heatsink with no less than 140 fins and a 112mm fan. The fan works at 1800RPM, and the included LED display function shows the temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. That's a pretty cool feature, although if you don't have a transparent case, it's virtually useless.

Expected to arrive in red, blue, gold, black and green, the X5 Orb FXII can be easily used with LGA775 and AM2/AM2+ processors, but pricing is still a secret. Anyway, since it's scheduled to arrive in stores in early June, or even by the end of this month, if we get lucky, I guess our patience won't be tried really hard this time...

Currently, if you want to build your own computer, the desktop is the right way to go. I don't have anything against notebooks, but it's a huge difference from building your own computer, and choosing some options from a system builder. Since our world is continuously changing, I wasn't amazed to see that OCZ Technology Group decided to allow ultimate customization for the notebooks, under the banner of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) notebook initiative.


According to Eugene Chang, product manager for OCZ system solutions, "For years consumers have wanted to build their own mobile computing platforms, but the product offerings and market simply did not serve them as they did in the desktop do it yourself segment. With the OCZ Do-It-Yourself Notebook initiative, OCZ empowers with the resources like validated component guides, documentation, tech support, and a warranty to allow consumers to configure and build a true gaming notebook with the exact specification that matches their unique requirements."

Unfortunately, one major issue with customizable notebooks hasn't been solved yet - while you can install different processors, memory, hard drives and so on, you are forced to stick to the 8600M GT graphics card that comes with the barebone DIY Gaming Notebook from OCZ, and considering the system requirements of the latest games, this is spoiling all the fun that should be hidden behind that "Gaming" label.

The OCZ DIY Gaming Notebook barebone comes with a 15.4-inch display, Intel PM965 core-logic, the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB GDDR2 memory that I mentioned above, CD/DVD burner, keyboard, touchpad, battery and everything else you need for proper office operation, and not gaming...

I know, I may be considered wicked because of what I just said, but we're in 2008! Desktop computers can easily use 4 GPUs, and OCZ is offering a so-called "Gaming Notebook" that has a video card which can't be changed, and it's also only an entry-level one? Come on, OCZ, I know you can do better!

Are supercomputers going to figure out the meaning of life anytime soon? OK, that might be a little too much to ask, even from a supercomputer. How about Matrix-like environments? Now this idea seems more plausible when we think about IBM’s Roadrunner project.

Don Grice, the chief engineer on IBM's Roadrunner, told Computer World: "We will break the petascale barrier. The only unknown for me will be what day it is. Griece compares the breaking of the petaflop barrier to the first step on the Moon. Most of the current supercomputers measure performance in hundreds of teraflops, but there’s a tight race between IBM along with Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Cray and Silicon Graphics in order to determine which one would be the first to bust through to the petascale.

Roadrunner is set to go online later this year at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, and will be able to compute enormous data strings, aiding in the research for nuclear weapons systems, climate changes and human genetics. Roadrunner has its components scattered over 6,000 square feet, weighs 500,000 pounds total, and uses 57 miles of cable, requiring 3.9 megawatts of power per hour.

The Roadrunner sure looks like some devourer of energy. Build several of these and we’ll be inside the Matrix in no time. Or maybe they’ll just want to figure out the mind of God?

In less than a decade, I guess a system administrator could simply put his company's server into a small case and go away with it, maybe even keep it running and wirelessly connected to the Internet while on the move! The miniaturization process goes on, and the UMPCs are getting more and more popular. For example, let's take the MSI Wind, announced some months ago as a future competitor to AsusTek's Eee PC...


When they have shown the MSI Wind for the first time, everyone expected to see a small laptop, a bit larger than the Eee PC, and not two products, but here's the catch - MSI tries to shoot two rabbits at once, by going after the now notorious UMPC from Asus, as well as its upcoming Eee BOX.

These being said, it seems we're going to have the MSI Wind notebook, and the MSI Wind PC. In the image at the beginning of the article you can see the MSI Wind PC, expected to arrive in mid-June, dressed in Black, White, and probably Pink (although I would rather go for Blue, or MSI's favorite color, Red).

The technical specifications look pretty well, especially the noise level and the power consumption value. Here you have all of those currently available:

- Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor (with passive heatsink)
- Intel 945GC + ICH7 mainboard (with passive heatsink)
- 1GB DDR2 533 Memory SO-DIMM (2GB MAX)
- 160GB 3.5" Hard Disk
- DC Onboard / 65W Adapter
- Slim Type DVD Combo Drive SATA interface
- Gigabit LAN
- On Board CF Card Connector (install OS into CF to save more power)
- 4 in 1 Card Reader
- 7.1 channel HD Audio ALC888
- Internal Mini PCI-E interface, support WiFi / TV Tuner Card (Optional)
- Noise : <30dba
- Power consumption : ~30W
- Size: 70(H)x215(W)x300(D)mm
- Linux based OS

At last, I should say this computer's design doesn't tell me anything. I am sure MSI could have done better, but after all, it's not the design that really matters. Since pricing wasn't announced yet, we should hope the pricing is much better than the design...or maybe it's just a problem with my judgement, and the upcoming MSI Wind PC looks simply great. What do you think?