With Turkey Day right around the corner, this will probably be the last news I post for a few days as I am hosting my family feast this year. I will try to start playing "catch-up" later this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
VIA's K8T900 chipset previewed
WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF the nForce4 chipset, NVIDIA threw a mighty big elbow into the guts of its would-be competitors in the Athlon 64 chipset market. By limiting support for its SLI multi-GPU technology to its own core-logic chipsets, NVIDIA hogged the spotlight for high-end enthusiast motherboards and carved out a sizable chunk of the market for the nForce4. ATI recently followed suit with its Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition chipset, aiming to leverage its own graphics prowess into chipset profits.
At long last, VIA says it's ready to fight back in earnest, and the chipset maker has enlisted the help of its sister company, S3 graphics, in making its push. The new K8T900 north bridge features a more robust PCI Express implementation that can divvy up its PCI Express lanes into two set of eight for better multi-GPU support, and it's paired up with the long-awaited VT8251 south bridge, sporting a full slate of next-gen I/O capabilities. Alongside this new chipset comes a new GPU family, the Chrome S20 series, ready to fire in a double-barreled GPU configuration known as MultiChrome.
But can the K8T900 really match up to the nForce4 SLI? Will S3's MultiChrome offer compelling performance on the K8T900 chipset? And what would happen if you could run a pair of high-end GeForce cards in SLI on this new VIA chipset? Read on for the answers.
@ The Tech Report
Tuesday Web Reviews:
HARDWARE
NZXT Lexa Classic case @ Pro-Clockers
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD review @ Techwarelabs
GeIL Ultra PC2-5300 DDR2-667 @ Phoronix
OCZ EL DDR PC-3500 Gold GX XTC Dual Channel Memory Preview @ 3dGameman
Ultra X-Finity 500 Watt ATX Power Supply @ PimpRig
ATI AIW X1800XL 256 @ Driverheaven
Ultra Products 7-Port USB Buddy Hub @ PimpRig
Bytecc ME-850 Landisk Enclosure Review @ MODTHEBOX.COM
Enermax Laureate Drive Enclosures @ Bigbruin
500gb Seagate 7200.9 Serial ATA Hard Drive Review @ Club Overclocker
Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO² and GTO Ultimate Edition Review @ Beyond3D
Via K8T900 preview @ bit-tech
ATI All-In-Wonder X1800 XL: All I Want? @ xbitlabs
Editorials
Buying Guide: Holiday 2005 Gifts @ Designtechnica
NVIDIAs Desperate Stand @ techPowerUp!
Fable: The Lost Chapters @ Bytesector
Digital Signal Processing Explained @ The TechZone
The 12 Days of Christmas Bona Fide Style@ BonaFideReviews
Events
MSI Factory Tour at Kunshan @ hardwarezone
Interviews
Supermicro: Going Servers Was the Right Decision. @ xbitlabs
Electronics
X-Micro Video MP3 400 @ Hardware Secrets
Kodak CX7530 5.0MP Digital Camera @ ThinkComputers.org
Fellows P-55C home, office shredder review @ A1 Electronics
Olympus SP-350 @ TrustedReviews
Games
Xbox 360 launch coverage @ bit-tech
Xbox 360 - Back to the Future @ FiringSquad
Xbox 360 Zero Hour @ krunker
GUN @ Gaming Illustrated
Shadow the Hedgehog GameCube Review @ GamersHell
Football Manager 2006 @ TrustedReviews
Gun (PC) review @ Strategyinformer
