Lady luck has been riding on Intel’s side for a very long time now. It seems that whatever Intel decides to do turns to gold, in contrast no matter how hard AMD tries it turns to dust (usually under its own pre-release hype weight).

With the recent release of 3 series processors based on second generation core architecture beefed up for the enthusiast segment, Intel has all but sealed the high end processor market. But Intel never does anything halfway. No siree bob! Intel releasing a new processor without forcing users to buy in on a new platform is like having egg on (Intel’s) face. This time around Intel has decreed that not only us end users will have to buy a new motherboard, we will also have to invest in a new cooling solution separately.

Today we’ll be looking in to one aspect of Intel’s decree: the motherboard. And what better way to start than with Intel’s own high end board the Intel DX79SI

MSI (Micro Star International) is a well known Taiwanese brand. It makes all sorts of computer gadgetry. It is well known for its motherboards and graphics card among other products. Its twin forzr series of GPU cooling solutions and After Burner (customized version of Riva Tuner) software over clocking utility have gained a wide spread following. Today we’ll be looking at a mid range motherboard solution for Intel 2xxx series of processors.

Allow me to introduce to you a wondrous little board that goes by the name of P67A-C43. I’ll tell you right now this is one hell of a board. It costs around 100 dollars, over clocks a 2600k to 4.4 GHz and offers USB 3.0, military grade components, active phase switching (APS) and menu driven, icon based EFI.

So what makes this board so great? Read on to find out

Antec is an American company that came into existence in the mid 80s. Since then it has produced, among other equipment, casing and power supplies for the personal computers. Their claim to fame is their 900 series of cases and a plethora of power supplies that cater to all value tiers.

What we have for review today is the no frills (from Antec’s Basiq range) power supply the VP450P.

Later this year Intel will introduce an all new platform for its enthusiast segment dubbed the Sandy-Bridge E; “E” for Extreme! With the new platform comes an all new socket: the 2011. Intel has a habit for launching a new socket for every processor line it launches. Though Intel promises that Ivy Bridge series of processor will work with the current p67 line of motherboards, it (Ivy Bridge) will have its own platform controller hub. Intel plans to include enough new features in it to entice existing users into upgrading. This will include native USB 3.0 support and more importantly native PCI-e 3.0 support (probably).

The existing King of Intel processors is the Core i7-990X. A 6 core 12 thread part that fits into a socket 1366.. Launched more than 2 years ago the S1366 has seen off five major mainstream chipsets (P55, H55, P67, H67 & Z68) and still comes out on top (as far as Intel’s marketing is concerned). The chipset that powers these boards is the X58.

For its one final hurrah major manufacturers have launched what can be described as the pinnacle of X58 boards. Asus Rampage III Extreme Black Edition (R3E-BE for short) is one such board. Do we really need another X58 board considering there is not much life left in the platform? Are these boards borne out of a desire to not let the competitors get a one up on them? Or are these genuine parts with genuine features and they deserve to be called the last great Kings of X58? Read on to find out.

Imagine sitting in a chauffeur driven Mercedes S Class. You sit inside cut off from the sweltering heat of the outside world. The dull hum of the engine is all you hear while you take a sip of your favorite beverage. You look outside the tinted glass to see a line of cars both in front and behind you. You look at your watch and realize that you only have a bare minimum of a time before your flight takes off. A biker zigzags between cars and makes his way through the traffic jam. As you see him drive by you, you think “If only I had a bike”…
15 minutes later you are whizzing your way to the airport, while the bedazzled biker takes your place in the Merc.

Moral of the story? It is not always ideal to have the biggest and the best, what you need is what suits (your) situation the most. The same holds true for the product under the microscope today. It is not going to break any over-clocking records. But it will offer you a life time of stable performance. Enter the MSI H61M-E23 motherboard.

MSI (Micro Star International) has been in the motherboard business for a very long time. They cater to all strata of markets all the way from the entry-level products to the super enthusiast category. The real money is in the entry-level products, while the biggest margins are in the other extreme end. Thus it is necessary to focus on all the markets in order to stay competitive and keep the share holders happy. Read on to find out if the board is what MSI hoped it would be (read: a money maker)

It grief’s me to say that ATi is no more. The company that gave us the Rage Pro is finally dead, swallowed up by AMD. For reasons that are only apparent to the board, AMD decided that the ATi name was no longer needed. All GPU products are now going to be sold under the AMD moniker.

With that out of the way let me say that few cards live up to expectations, and more, as does the 6900 series from AMD. I’ll tell you right now; the 6970 flirts with the GTX 580 a card that costs a good US$130 more. On average it performs better than its price rival the GTX 570.

What makes this such a great card? Read on to find out.

Imagine if you will a company decides to design a motherboard that will survive in a war zone. It populates the board with military grade components and even bundles the test report which attests this together with the board. It even goes as far as to provide an armor cover over the motherboard to ‘enhance’ cooling. Many would call of this gimmickry on the scale larger than Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The company in question is Asus, the number one motherboard maker in the world. Is Asus’s use of exotic components and armor which alleges to improve cooling legitimate? Read on to find out

Intel’s tick-tock clock work like release schedule has given its main rivals quiet a lot of headaches. Intel’s clock is running on time (mostly) and despite a scare (the p67 sata bug) or two its keeping time.

Earlier this year Intel unleashed a salvo of new processor based on a new(ish) architecture called the 2nd generation core architecture (nee: Sandy Bridge). This builds on the success of the core design and adds several desirable features, including a highly revamped graphics core.

A little later we will look at the performance characteristics of the current flagship processor, the Core i7 2600K.

GeForce GTX580, it’s the new top dog from green team. It was launched in November, 09. With GTX580, Nvidia started their new 500 series.

The GTX580 is based on ‘Fermi’ architecture which was used in GTX400 series. The king of GTX400 series, GTX480 gave a noticeable boost in performance but was a letdown in thermal and acoustic regards. With GTX580, Nvidia claims better performance than GTX480 with better thermal and power consumption levels. That’s something really surprising as the GF100 GPU used in GTX580 is based on the same 40nm process, which was used in GF100 forGTX480.

Read more to find our how MSI 580GTX perforemed

Kingston is one of the largest, if not the largest provider of memory products for various electronic devices. It has its claws extended in almost all memory sub-territories. Be it Flash memory (flash drives, memory card for phones and solid state drives) or random access memory –Kingston is everywhere.

The company caters to all market segments when it comes to desktop memory. From the ubiquitous Value Ram to the high end Hyper-X.

To offer more at the high end, Kingston started offering a variant of its Hyper-X RAM, called Hyper-X blu. This is an entry level memory kit mean for gamers and enthusiasts. It pairs the performance characteristics of the Hyper-X family with the price of its value line.

Today we have, under the knife, a 4GB kit (2×2) of DDR3-1600 MHz RAM under the Hyper-X blu banner.