Digital Technology News, Camera, Camcorder and Cool Gadget Reviews

GA-790FXTA-UD5 is a feature-packed ATX motherboard. Its fast AMD 790G chipset isn’t the latest, but matches new AMD 890-based boards with an overall score of 120 in our benchmark tests.

Gigabyte has fitted a dedicated SATA3 controller that provides two SATA3 ports alongside the six SATA2 ports, while another supplies two dual-purpose USB/eSATA connections on the back panel.

You’ll also find eight USB ports, two of which are USB3, and two PS/2 ports. There are six driver-definable 3.5mm analogue audio ports and optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs, plus eight-pin and four-pin FireWire ports and, unusually, two 10/100/1,000Mbit/s Ethernet network ports. Read the rest of this entry »

Gigabyte’s 890GPA-UD3H is a full ATX AM3 motherboard with a whopping six SATA3 ports, plus an extra two SATA2 ports that are served by the same chip that handles the board’s legacy IDE port.

There are two PCI-E x16 slots, which run at x8 if both are populated with cards, three PCI-E xl slots and two PCI slots. Installing a graphics card with a large cooler will block the slot below. Four memory slots allow you to install up to 16GB of memory at a maximum speed of 2,000MHz.

There are just six USB ports on the back panel, including two USB3 ports. There are another four USB headers on the motherboard, which can supply up to eight more ports, but you’ll need brackets or case connectors to use them. There’s also a PS/2 port and a FireWire port on the back. Read the rest of this entry »

MSI has crammed plenty of features on to this micro ATX motherboard, including USB3 and five SATA2 ports. It supports the latest hexacore AMD Phenom II processors and provides a wide range of overclocking options.

There are two PCI-E x16 slots, but they’ll both run at 8x if you have two cards in them. There’s also one PCI and one PCI-E x1 slot, although the latter will be blocked if you install a large graphics card. Four memory slots can take up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM running at up to 2,133MHz.

The integrated ATI Radeon HD 4290 managed only 3.5fps in Call of Duty 4, so it’s not up to 3D gaming. However, it’s well equipped for dual-monitor or home cinema use, with VGA and DVI outputs as well as an HDMI port capable outputting full HD video, although HD audio will be downsampled to DVD quality. There are also six 3.5mm stereo outputs for the built-in Realtek ALC889, which can be configured for 5.1 surround sound audio with a mic input or 7.1 surround sound without. There’s also an optical S/PDIF output if you need a digital connection to your speakers.

The backplane also provides six USB ports, including two USB3 ports. There’s also an eSATA port.

Asrock’s 880CXH-USB3 is slimmer than most ATX boards, measuring 305x224mm. It’s also somewhat short of ports and uses the budget AMD 880CX chipset.

There’s only one PCI-E x16 slot, but there’s little benefit to be gained by using two PCI-E graphics cards. Most expansion cards will fit into either the two PCI-E x1 or three PCI slots, and a double-height graphics card won’t block any other ports. Other features include five SATA2 connectors and four memory slots capable of taking up to 16GB of RAM at 1,800MHz.

At the back are an eSATA port and six USB ports, including one USB3 port. Confusingly, both the USB3 port and one of its USB2 neighbours are blue. There are five 3.5mm analogue audio ports and an optical S/PDIF port. You can also output audio and video from the HDMI port, which the integrated ATI Radeon HD 4250 can use to output full-quality Blu-ray video and DVD-quality audio. It’s not up to modern 3D gaming and managed just 3.8fps in our CoD4 benchmark.

The 880GXH-USB3 isn’t that fast, but it’s cheap, with lots of features. If you don’t need SATA3, it’s a great way to save a bit of money.

Nvidia and AMD (formerly ATI) are certainly fighting for the attention of gaming enthusiasts, releasing numerous cards around the £200 mark. Back in July 2010, Nvidia launched the excellent GeForce GTX 460  for just shy of that amount. More recently, AMD waded in with its HD 6870 for around £180 and the Radeon HD 6950  for £220. Now Nvidia is back with the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, again at around £200.

In fact the 560 Ti is available at a range of prices. This is because Nvidia has encouraged manufacturers to produce overclocked versions of the card, so much so that there are few stock versions available. Our benchmarks below were run on the reference card from Nvidia, which has a core clock speed of 822MHz and 1GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1GHz. However, cards with higher clock speeds are available at the same price as the reference cards.The Palit GeForce GTX 560Ti Sonic Edition, for example, has a core clock speed of 900MH. Read the rest of this entry »

This one is not new, it has been around for almost a year, but having spent the last month with it in my palm made me feel it deserves mention here.

It has multi-touch capability, and 360 degree scrolling. The only problem is that its meant for Mac only, and I had to go through quite some trouble to get it working with my Windows 7 netbook.

Nvidia has lacked a credible mid-range graphic card for too long, with ATI’s 4000- and 5000-series cards taking all the plaudits for the past two years. The GTX 460 marked Nvidia’s return to serious competition with arch-rival ATI.

Gigabyte’s GV-N450-1GI is based around Nvidia’s new GeForce GTS 450 chipset, and with cards on sale for £100 we’d hoped it would take on ATI’s aging HD 5770, which has recently been reduced to a similar price. Like the HD 5770, the GTS 450 is a cut-down version of more expensive models. Read the rest of this entry »

Biostar’sTH55B HD is a surprisingly affordable socket LGA1156 motherboard. It’s a microATX model, so it will fit inside more compact cases. To use the graphics outputs, you’ll need an Intel processor with integrated graphics.

It has two PCI slots as well as a PCI Express xl slot for expansion cards. A dedicated graphics card can be plugged into the PCI Express x16 graphics card slot The back panel has only four USB ports unless you add a backplate and use the headers on the board.

The 500CB NH01 Nobility isn’t the first portable USB3 disk we’ve seen – that honour goes to LaCie’s 500GB Rugged USB3. While The Rugged costs ?129, or 26p per gigabyte, the Nobility costs just 15p per gigabyte, which is little more than a USB2 portable disk.

As expected for a USB3 disk, the Nobility sped through our file transfer tests, copying large files at an overall speed of 73.8MB/s and small files at an average of 51.4MB/s. The Rugged was around 30MB/s faster when copying large files and 20MB/s faster at transferring small files. The speed difference is due to the fact that the Rugged uses a 7,2O0rpm disk while the Nobility uses a 5,4O0rpm disk. Nevertheless, the Nobility is still much faster than any USB2 disk. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sandberg Multi Hard Disk Box takes both SATA and PATA disks, but it’s not much bigger or more expensive than SATA-only enclosures.

Fitting a disk into the sturdy black metal case is simple. Several small screws are involved, so you’ll need a steady hand, but a screwdriver is included.

With a 640GB, 5,400rpm SATA disk fitted and connected over eSATA, transfer speeds were fast, with an average of 54,8 MB/s for large files and 25.6MB/s for small files,The eSATA connection doesn’t work with PATA disks and isn’t ideal for mobile use, as you’ll need the included 5V-to-USB cable for power.
Read the rest of this entry »