Corsair Obsidian 700D Full Tower Case Video

Manufacturer's Product Page: Click Here
Part Number: CC700D
Warranty: 2 years
Price: $249

Less than a year ago, if you would have told us that Corsair was thinking about launching a case, we would have had some serious questions about your sanity. Much like when this memory company launched their first two power supplies, Corsair did the unexpected and proved their skeptics wrong by introducing a full tower case that featured almost everything people had been asking for. The legend of the 800D was born literally overnight and it was received to a standing ovation here at Hardware Canucks.

Flush off the retail success that has made the 800D an extremely popular option for novices and enthusiasts alike, Corsair has now introduced a new case called the Obsidian 700D. To be honest with you, this isn’t a new product at all but is rather a slightly cut-down version of its bigger brother. The cuts Corsair has performed are all quite sensible and include the removal of the hot-swappable hard drive bays as well as the windowed side panel. The result isn’t a substantial cost saving –the 700D is a mere $30 less expensive that it’s bigger brother- but there are many people out there who are more than happy to do without these two items and any price reduction is welcome.

Other than those two small changes, the 700D is literally an 800D with a different name. It still carries the same affinity for water cooling setups, has an absolutely cavernous interior, uses high flow 140mm fans and comes in a single colour: imposing black. Naturally, almost everything we liked about the 800D is back again for an encore presentation but are the differences really enough to warrant a new product name? Let’s find out.

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Corsair Flash Voyager GTR 32GB Flash Drive

Manufacturer's Product Page: Click Here
Part Number: CMFVYA32GBGT2
TechWiki Info:
Warranty: 10 years
Price: Click here to check prices

With the storage market expanding at a breakneck pace and solid state drives taking center space, people’s focus has very much been on internal storage solutions. There has been very little news regarding one of the mainstays of many users’ daily file transfer needs: the ubiquitous flash drive. The inclusion of USB 3.0 on many motherboards has somewhat restored some interest in these drives simply because of its promise of break-neck file transfer speeds. Unfortunately, at this point the implementation of current hot-running USB 3.0 controllers into small flash drives doesn’t appeal to many companies so they have stuck with USB 2.0. Corsair on the other hand has gone to the next level by releasing their GTR series which supposedly pushes the limits of USB 2.0 technology.

In this review we will be taking a closer look at the newly released Flash Voyager GTR 32GB which actually looks like a class-leading product at this point. Corsair has a long history with all things based on flash memory and has released successive generations of flash drives of which some have a unique focus. Products in their Survivor series are considered to be some of the most rugged drives around and the Padlock series sports data protection through a unique onboard keypad. The Voyager series on the other hand can be considered a jack of all trades with high speeds, near-invincible construction and even a Mini version for those of you who hate bulky thumb drives.

While nearly everyone and his mother may own at least one of these little marvels, this is not to say that all flash drives are created equal. In fact many only have one thing going for them: low price since their capacity, speed and durability are usually sorely lacking. This is where the Voyager GTR 32GB enters the equation since it can not only carry a huge 32GB of data, but has also been designed from the ground up to be as fast as you can realistically get when using the USB 2.0 interface.

Besides the shear profusion of products Corsair offers, the other main thing they are known for is their commitment to customer service and customer satisfaction. In the case of their Voyager line of flash drives this means an amazing (and industry leading) 10 year warranty

Even though this is a relatively new product, it should be fairly easy to find at both retailers and e-tailers alike throughout North America. However, even though it will not be overly hard to find it still a large performance-orientated flash drive so it does come with a bit of a price premium. As of the time of this review it can be found for about $110 CAD / $90 USD, which is not all that terrible. Just remember that if you want larger capacities, you’re going to be paying about $220 Canadian for the 64GB version and an eye-watering $325 for a massive 128GB of storage space.

Speed, size and durability are the main claims to fame this unit has going for it and we intend to find out whether or not this drive deserves these bragging rights.

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AMD’s 890GX Chipset

AMD’s 890GX Chipset: Low-End Price, High-End Features

Contributing Writers:
Patrick "Mac"
Mike "lemonlime"

Before we really get into this article, let’s rewind to November of 2007 when the original AMD Phenom processors were first released as B2 stepping chips. As many of you will remember, those were tough times for AMD since Intel had already been heavily marketing their quad core Kentsfield for almost a year. To make matters even worse, the original Phenoms failed to perform up to expectations and featured a TBL bug that popped up in certain situations. AMD however retained their fighting spirit and pushed through adversity to release the B3 stepping Phenoms and eventually went on to introduce the highly successful Phenom II and Athlon II lines of dual, tri and quad core processors. With these products, they have been able to concentrate on brining value to the CPU market in the face of what seems to be rapidly increasing prices from Intel’s camp.

While AMD’s processors have quickly progressed from one generation to the next, the associated AM2+ and AM3 motherboards didn’t fare quite as well. 790FX-based boards were the flagship products back when they were released in 2007 and still remain so today. The same can be said about the other 790-series boards but many of them were replaced with the newer 785G products over the course of last year. Let’s be honest though; in terms of component lifecycles, nearly three years is a hell of a long time. The 700 series of chipsets were getting long in the tooth and while the 785G boards did breathe some life into things, AMD needed an update. This is where the new 800-series comes into play.

Today marks the official release of AMD’s new chipsets that are based on the new SB850 and SB810 southbridge chips. These new products are basically more evolved versions of the 700-series and will make up the backbone of the new Leo and Dorado platforms. At their most basic, the two new platforms will be targeting different ends of the market. AMD has stated the Leo will appeal to buyers looking at the upcoming Phenom II X6 and Zosma-based quad core processors while the Dorado aims for the lower end dual and quad core products. According to the information we have, these new chipsets pack a number of new features but will retail for almost the same amount as the outgoing products. If anything, this should cement AMD’s value-oriented goals into the mindsets of the buying public.

It should also be noted that today marks the first time the media is allowed to talk about the upcoming Thurban-based Phenom II X6 as a bona-fide product. You won’t see any firm benchmarks yet (at least not from us) and actual availability is slated for sometime in the April / May timeframe but at least we now know the name of this elusive 40nm, 6-core processor. However, the only reason AMD is announcing it now is to stave off some of the bleeding which will inevitably come with Intel’s upcoming Gulftown release.

For the purposes of this article we will be concentrating on the 890GX chipset since it targets a potentially lucrative market for AMD and one which will appeal to consumers looking at a value-oriented setup. There won’t be many benchmarks here since they will come in the separate motherboard reviews but we do have boards from ASUS and Gigabyte on-hand which will be on display a bit later in this article. So, treat this article like a primer for a whole series of 890-series reviews in the coming months.

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AMD’s 890GX Chipset

Introducing the Leo and Dorado Platforms

With the release of the 800-series chipsets, AMD is now moving away from their older “Dragon” and “Pices” platforms towards what they call “Leo” and “Dorado”. Leo will basically be the all-encompassing name for their high end and upper mainstream products while Dorado will end up targeting entry level consumers. Let’s take a look at how these new platforms compare to their predecessors.


Looking at the chart above, it should be come apparent that the new SB8xx-based boards aren’t really going to offer anything revolutionary but will rather evolve AMD’s platforms to fit better with today’s market trends. The most important move in our opinions from a compatibility standpoint is the omission of DDR2 support from the newer platforms. It was only a matter of time until the move to a DDR3 / AM3-exclusive platform was made and make no mistake about it; we feel this has been a long time in coming.

Much like the 790GX and 785G from the last generation, the lower-end 800-series boards will feature integrated graphics but we will go into more about that a bit later. One of the more interesting things about the graphics aspects for these chipsets is the fact that yet another mid-range GX-series board from AMD will feature dual 8x PCI-E lanes for Crossfire use. However, it should be noted that it is up to the board manufacturer to implement the necessary on-board automatic switch to ensure full 16x operation if only the first PCI-E slot is populated. Also of note is the fact that none of these boards will be SLI certified for the time being. The 800G on the other hand makes due with a single 16x PCI-E slot.

890GX: Gigabyte and ASUS

One of the most significant evolutions between the 700-series and 800-series is the addition of SATA 6Gb/s compatibility to the southbridge. This could give AMD a serious leg up on Intel who would have had to change their CPU dies in order to support this new standard since all of their I/O functions are now controlled through the CPU package. Instead, all AMD had to do was add the functionality to their southbridge and it was off to the races. Unfortunately, while the number of USB 2.0 ports was increased on the SB800-series, SuperSpeed USB (or USB 3.0) will not be natively supported but can be added through a controller chip. Just remember that the 880G will not have support for SATA 6Gb/s.

AMD’s new line-up does look quite strong and it is great to see pricing won’t see significant upwards movement when going from one generation to the next. We have to applaud AMD for this price stagnation and there is no doubt in our minds the new features will entice quite a few people to make the jump to a non-Intel platform.

These will basically be the last major revisions to AMD’s current chipset architecture before the release of the Scorpius and Lynx platforms in 2011. While not much is known about either of these platforms, we can tell you that they will offer the first brand new x86 architecture from AMD in quite some time. Basically, Scorpius will use a 32nm Zambezi CPU with up to 8 physical Bulldozer cores while Lynx will encompass 32nm dual, triple and quad core Llano CPUs. All in all, it looks like AMD will have a strong line-up far into the future.

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AMD’s 890GX Chipset

890GX Features and Specifications

As with any new chipset launch, we’ll turn things over to the customary block diagram.

Image courtesy of AMD.

As with all of AMD’s platforms, the 800 series is a dual-chip solution encompassing the 890GX primary controller hub – we don’t feel right calling it a northbridge any more as the memory controller resides in the CPU – as well as the SB850 southbridge. As expected, the duties of 890GX include CPU interface and PCI-Express I/O control as well as graphics processing via the integrated graphics core dubbed Radeon HD 4290. You may notice that there isn’t much detail on the IGP depicted above, but not to worry, we’ll cover that in detail shortly.

You may notice that there is no mention of DDR2, only DDR3 and socket AM3 in the block diagram. Unlike earlier IGP platforms, it appears that AMD will be targeting the 890GX to AM3 based DDR3 systems – particularly with their new AM3 based Athlon II line of CPUs. Since memory control is exclusive to the CPU, and the CPU interfaces with the chipset using the same Hypertransport 3.0 bus, there is technically no reason that the 890GX couldn’t be adapted for use with AM2+ based systems. We’ll have to wait and see what board partners decide to produce, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the 890GX platform remains exclusively AM3, which makes sense as that seems to be the market direction – even for budget systems.

Let’s begin with the PCI-Express configuration supported by the 890GX. Like it’s predecessor, the 790GX, the 890GX has a healthy array of PCI Express 2.0 lanes, including a 16X 2.0 lane that can be evenly split into two 8X 2.0 lanes for Crossfire-X configurations. This was certainly nice to see, as the previous lower end 785G chipset couldn’t split it’s 16X lane, and users are forced to more of a crippling 16x4 configuration that could be limiting with higher end cards. A dual 8X configuration gives buyers a lot of flexibility. Not only can they begin with nothing but integrated graphics, but they can move all the way up to a pair of higher end cards if they so desire.

Aside from the graphics card lanes, there are a total of six additional 1x 2.0 lanes available for integrated components – like audio and network controllers – and additional slots. If this weren’t enough, two more 1x 2.0 lanes are provided by the SB850 southbridge.

Moving on down to the shiny new SB850, we see that AMD has updated the chipset interconnect and is now using a 2GB/s interface dubbed “Alink Express III”. Although we’re not sure exactly what has changed, the older Alink Express II was essentially a 4x PCI-Express 1.1 lane, so bandwidth appears to have been increased – likely to a 4x 2.0 lane - for improved chipset to chipset communication performance.

Speaking of the southbridge, the most significant new feature that is has been brought to the table is 6Gbps SATA support. That’s right, those lucky enough to own one of the new Sandforce 1500 based SSDs can now enjoy Read/Write performance well beyond 300MB/s. Aside from updated SATA support, the remainder of the southbridge is consistent with the older SB750. We unfortunately don’t get to enjoy integrated USB 3.0 support at this point in time, as the SB850 remains a USB 2.0 controller.

Image courtesy of AMD.

On the topic of USB 3.0, we should note that AMD was very careful to point out that USB 3.0 controllers can be interfaced to the chipset using the 1x PCI-Express 2.0 lanes for a maximum theoretical throughput of 500MB/s. Coincidentally, Intel’s new H55 and H57 are limited to half bandwidth lanes and a maximum of 250MB/s to off-chip USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 controllers. This likely won’t be of concern for USB 3.0, but having on-chip SATA 3.0 support is certainly a benefit as the only bottleneck is the 2GB/s Alink interface between the chipsets and the 1x component interface lanes don’t need to be used at all.

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SilverStone HDDBoost

SilverStone HDDBoost Hybrid SSD / HDD Device


Manufacturer's Product Page: SilverStone Technology HDDBoost
Price: MSRP $49


There really is no denying that solid state drives have a level of power and performance in certain crucial areas which simply make them better than hard disk drives as “Operating System” drives. With the number of SSD reviews showing their faces around the internet, it should be obvious to you that even the slowest modern generation solid state drive is faster in most areas than the fastest hard drive. However, all that power and performance comes with a massive increase in price and a huge decrease in storage capacity versus a spindle-based drive. This has led to many people forgoing the SSD upgrade option for the time being.

In the past, hard drive manufactures like Seagate and Samsung have tried to combine the power of solid state drives with the capacity of spindle-based drives with their “hybrid” products. Sadly these efforts were less than impressive and were quickly discarded. Meanwhile, Adaptec has approached this problem differently with their MaxIQ kit MaxIQ kit , which allows you to use a solid stat drive as cache for a raid array. Unfortunately, this solution is designed for an enterprise environment, costs a heck of a lot of money and is limited in which SSDs you can use.

Users want the best of both worlds: the storage capacity of a spindle-based drive with the speed of an SSD and this is where SilverStone’s HDDBoost comes into play. The HDDBoost allows you to mix and match different hard and solid state drives while combining the units in such a way that if one drive kicks the bucket, the data on the other is still safe and sound. In a nutshell, the HDDBoost is a two port RAID 1 controller with a twist and besides the obvious limitation of one HDD and one SSD, allows for a massive amount of flexibility. We will get into what makes the HDDBoost so unique, but needless to say this is certainly a novel and intriguing way of overcoming past (seemingly insurmountable) problems which plagued earlier Hybrids. The ability to chose your level of performance and storage size based on your own personal criteria is seductive, but only if it works. SilverStone also claims that by minimizing the writes to the SSD, you will effectively extend its life as well.

This unit doesn’t include a drive but should rather be treated as the means to combine two dissimilar drives one virtual drive. As such, it comes with a frugal price of around $49. With a price such as this, the HDDBoost is intended to bridge the chasm between consumers that can afford high performance, high capacity SSDs and those that just want some extra speed in their system without sacrificing storage capacity.

To help us figure out how this product performs in its intended market niche, we have carefully selected two moderately priced drives to showcase the HDDBoost’s abilities. On the hard drive end of things we have chosen the venerable Western Digital 320GB single platter hard drive which goes for about $45, and for the solid state drive we have gone with the Kingston branded version of the Intel X25-V 40GB: the now defunct Kingston SSDNow V 40GB which retailed for as little as $90. All in all, this could prove to be an interesting review.

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Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB Toxic

Product Number: 100282TXSR
Price:
Price @ NCIX.com
Price @ Newegg.ca
Price @ Newegg.com
Warranty: 2-years


With Hardware Canucks cluttered with reviews of ATI cards, it is obvious that competition isn’t something the graphics card market is seeing a lot of lately. A situation such as this wasn’t expected by anyone about a year ago but we have to live with it for the time being. In the meanwhile, ATI hasn’t been pulling their punches or resting on their laurels and neither has their board partners. While competition against NVIDIA cards is virtually nonexistent at this point, there are some healthy battles going on between the heavyweights within ATI’s stable of partners. These manufacturers are striving to differentiate themselves from their rivals by releasing cards sporting increased clock speeds and some downright interesting cooling solutions and this review will be focusing on one such card. While any sort of competing product from NVIDIA would be welcome by the market, we’re more than happy to make do with Sapphire, ASUS, Gigabyte, PowerColor, and others releasing ATI-based cards of ever-increasing potential.

Sapphire usually leads the pack when it comes to custom versions of ATI cards and even before the official release of the HD 5000-series, they were already leaking information about what would become the first custom HD 5870 available on the market: the HD 5870 Vapor-X. They have followed up that impressive card with a successive number of non-reference DX11 products but have so far stuck to the mostly reference-clocked Vapor-X products. Missing in action were the Toxic and Atomic editions which made a serious name for themselves when they were released as HD 4890 cards not that long ago but it was only a matter of time before comparable HD 5000-series cards saw the light of day. Well, the wait is over because Sapphire has now introduced their HD 5850 1GB Toxic into the market.

The HD 5850 Toxic represents a significant step forward for Sapphire and HD 5850 cards in general since it throws out the reference design, adds a custom cooler and pushes clock speeds above and beyond what we are used to seeing. In order to keep the heat from an overclocked core under control, Sapphire has decided to use their Vapor-X cooling technology as well as a truly impressive heatsink design. There are other features as well such as specially designed chokes but we will get into those a bit more later on in this review. To make matters even better, all of these additions don’t come at an exorbitant price increase as we have seen this card retailing for under $340 which represents a mere $30 premium over a reference HD 5850.

In our opinion, there is a lot about the Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic to get excited about and by the end of this review; we hope you will feel the same way.

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EVGA P55 Classified 200 LGA1156 Motherboard Review

EVGA P55 Classified 200 LGA1156 Motherboard Review



Price: $365+ CND Price Comparison
Manufacturer Product Page: EVGA Corporation
TechWIKI Info: EVGA P55 Classified 200 - TechWIKI
Manufacturer's Part Number: 160-LF-E659-KR
Warranty: 3 Year Limited Warranty w/Registration
Buy from: NCIX | DirectCanada | BestDirect


What is black and red and full of sexy all over? Well we can't tell you because it is Classified. That's right, this is another installment of the EVGA Classified show. Our guest star is of the P55 variety sporting the latest mainstream LGA1156 socket from Intel. The term mainstream, which is what the Intel P55 chipset is billed as, doesn't exactly correlate with ultra high-end which is what the Classified name from EVGA is generally paired with. It is this sort of oxymoron that makes this board quite intriguing.

What we have here is the absolute top end of the EVGA P55 lineup. This list of motherboards includes the P55 V, up through the P55 Micro, and the penultimate P55 FTW 200 with a few more motherboards filling in the cracks. The EVGA offerings reach a crescendo with the motherboard we are looking at today, the EVGA P55 Classified 200. EVGA decided that just because the P55 chipset is considered the mainstream counterpart to the enthusiast level Intel X58 chipset, it didn't mean people wouldn't be looking for premium motherboards in this segment.

This is where the Classified steps in. Based on the P55 chipset the EVGA P55 Classified 200 supports LGA1156 i5 and i7 8xx series processors. But unlike other P55 motherboards, the P55 Classified 200 can accommodate Tri-SLI thanks to the implementation of the of the NF200 chipset. The NF200 allows the motherboard to split up some of the PCI-E lanes allowing for three, four, or technically even five video cards to be used at the same time. Typical P55 motherboards only allow two-way SLI or CrossFireX so this definitely opens doors on a platform not typical of its capabilities.

Of course there is much more to the EVGA P55 Classified 200 feature list which we plan on having a look at in full. If you are not familiar with the Classified brand, you are in for a treat. If you are familiar with previous EVGA Classified motherboards, then you know what to expect as EVGA is sure to keep the strong tradition of the Classified name with this latest installment. So sit back, relax, and grab a fresh bowl of popcorn; the show is about to begin and there is something in here for everyone.

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Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7
LGA1366 Motherboard Review

Manufacturer's Part Number: GA-X58A-UD7
Price: $360CDN+ Price Comparison
Manufacturer's Product Page: Giga-Byte Technology Co., Ltd.
Warranty: 3 year limited warranty
Buy from: NCIX | DirectCanada | BestDirect


At this year's Computex we had the priviledge of taking an early look at Gigabyte's X58A motherboard lineup. Even though all of the models were very early samples, it was obvious that these second generation X58 motherboards would bring a lot to the table. People were so impressed with these new models that the EX58A-EXTREME was actually one of 25 products shown off at Computex 2009 that was selected for the Best Choice Award.

After being long delayed due to a problem with Marvell's SATA 6Gb/s controller, the EX58A-EXTREME eventually became the X58A-UD7 that we are reviewing today. This is the Cream of the Crop, the best and most expensive motherboard in Gigabyte's entire motherboard roster. With many motherboards it's hard to know what to talk about but with this one, where do we start? First, this model utilizes Gigabyte's brand new 24-phase power design, which should not only allow for superior extreme overclocking, but higher reliability, lower temperatures, and better energy efficiency as well. Secondly, thanks to the aforementioned Marvell controller, this motherboard support the new SATA 6Gb/s interface. Mostly important though, like all X58A motherboards, the X58A-UD7 supports USB 3.0, which is absolutely going to be one of the most important new technologies of 2010.

Speaking of USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s, it should be mentioned that Gigabyte has devised an easy way of distinguishing the motherboards which support these technologies from those that don't. Basically, any of their boards that use the "A" designation after the chipset name (X58A, P55A, etc.) make use of the new USB and SATA interfaces while other models don't.

Befitting its high-end roots, this is one of the few Intel X58-based motherboards with four mechanical PCI-E x16 slots which are capable of x16/x16, x16/x8/x8 and x8/x8/x8/x8 configurations. Officially, this motherboard 'only' supports 3-way CrossFireX and 3-way SLI, but with single-slot cards Quad CrossFireX is definitely do-able as well. Oddly enough, perhaps the best part of this motherboard is the software. As you will see in the coming pages, Gigabyte have created some interesting new utilities to help manage your system, secure your data, and even lower power consumption, all with a bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.

This is a review that you won't want to miss, if only to see how well USB 3.0 performs compared to USB 2.0. Trust us, it will blow your mind.

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ASUS P7H57D-V EVO
LGA1156 Motherboard Review

Manufacturer's Part Number: P7H57D-V EVO
Price: $220CDN+ Price Comparison
Manufacturer's Product Page: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
Warranty: 3 year limited warranty (with 1st year advanced RMA service)



As you all undoubtedly know Intel recently released the first CPU+GPU hybrid processors on the market in the form of the Clarkdale LGA1156 family, which is comprised of the i5-600 series, i3-500 series, and Pentium G6000 series. These new models cater to the mainstream PC market, with a slant towards budget systems and home theater PC's (HTPC). Specifically, these are the chips that Intel plans to replace the venerable Core 2 Duo series with.

With the release of the processors, Intel also unveiled three new chipsets (H55/H57/Q57). The two chipsets that consumers are likely to encounter in the retail market are the H55 Express and H57 Express. For all extent and purpose, both chipsets are identical, with the H57 distinguishing itself from the H55 with 2 additional USB 2.0 ports and 2 additional PCI-E x1 slots. Not a significant difference by any means.

However, while nearly all H55 motherboards are sub-$150 models, the H57 chipset has given motherboard manufacturers a reason to create some higher-end motherboards sporting more PCI-E x16 slots, SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0. The P7H57D-V EVO is one such product. While designing a premium motherboard around an affordable processor series might seem counter-productive, the simple fact of the matter is that most Clarkdale's really aren't that cheap, yet that hasn't stopped them from selling well.

Coming in at around $220CAD, the P7H57D-V EVO is priced more along the lines of a fully featured P55 motherboard. This makes sense though since this model has exactly the same layout and feature set as the $200CAD P7P55D-E PRO, and can also support the Lynnfield LGA1156 processors. An extra $20 for DVI/VGA outputs is not unreasonable, but can this Clarkdale-oriented motherboard distinguish itself enough to warrant its high price? Well that's what we are here to find out.

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Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 1GB Review

Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 1GB GDDR5 Review

Product Number: 11169-00-51R
Price:Approx $250 USD / $280 CAD
Warranty: 2-years



ATI has been attacking the DX11 market from every single price point as of late and they finally have what appears to be a full deck of cards which appeal to literally every market niche. They have released an astonishing nine cards in the last six months with a few more to come while the competition seems to be doing nothing but spinning their wheels and respinning chips. Even though NVIDIA’s March 26th launch of their GF100 parts is just around the corner, ATI isn’t by any means sitting back and watching the world pass them by considering they are actively working on refreshing their lineup in addition to releasing new products. This in itself is no small feat and it really shows how far this company has come since AMD stepped in to purchase them.

In what probably seems to be a wet dream for many people looking to upgrade their GPUs and a reoccurring nightmare for reviewers, ATI is releasing yet another GPU today: the “Cypress LE” or HD 5830 1GB as it will be commonly referred to. ATI’s HD 5000 series lineup does span almost every price bracket but they felt that there was a big enough performance gap between the higher-end HD 5850 and decidedly more mainstream HD 5770 to warrant a product that would bridge the gap between the two. Previously, this spot was taken up by the HD 4890 1GB which was retailing for around $200 USD before getting the axe in preparation for the HD 5830 launch. With the HD 5850 currently sitting in what many consider to be the leading price / performance spot at around $315 USD and some HD 5770s retailing for less than $170, there was plenty of room to play with.

For all intents and purposes, this is a bit of a “freak” since what we are looking at is a card which is based off of GPU cores that weren’t able to meet the binning requirements for use in the HD 5850. This translates into an identical die size and transistor count as the HD 5850 but in a product that is significantly less powerful. This is a great move from a cost savings standpoint since the cores that were going unused can now be recycled into a competitive product. To make matters even more interesting, ATI is supposedly not giving their board partners a set reference design for them to base their products off of. As such, at launch you will likely see all manner of HD 5830s; some based off of HD 5850 PCBs while others will be using slightly lower-end starting points and more cooler designs than you can shake a finger at.

When it comes to a card like the HD 5830, price is everything and when we reached out to our retailer contacts they came back with answers. Basically, expect launch prices for this card to go all the way up to (and maybe even slightly over) $275 CAD / $245 USD depending on the accessory and game packages. This puts ATI’s new card in an interesting position at $70 USD less than a HD 5850 and about $70 more than a HD 5770 we’re really talking about the middle ground here. As has been tradition with ATI launches these days, stock will also be a bit tight for the first few days at some locations but should improve quickly following that.

In this particular review we will be looking at the Sapphire HD 5830 1GB which makes use of a cooler that is akin to the one used on the HD 5850 Vapor-X and is based off of that card’s PCB. This should give it some incredible temperatures but will also make it significantly longer than the HD 5770. That being said, without further ado let’s get on with this review.

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Upcoming Intel Core Series CPU’s Leaked

In another round of incremental updates to its Core series lineup, Intel will be debuting its hexa-core Gulftown processor, along with a few other pieces to fill in some perceived gaps.

A report from OCWorkbench, citing Japanese news sources, claims we will be seeing the six core behemoth on March 16th, 2010. The report states that the Core i7 960 Bloomfield - just 6 months after launch – will likely be pulled.

CPU	Codename	Cores	Speed (tb:=Turbo Boost)	Socket	Release
Core i7 980X EE	Gulftown	6 + HT	3.33 GHz (tb: 3.60 GHz)	LGA-1366	March 16th ‘10
Core i7 970	? Bloomfield	? 4 + HT	? 3.33 GHz (tb: 3.46 GHz)	LGA-1366	Q3, 2010
Core i7 930	Bloomfield	4 + HT	2.80GHz (tb: 3.06 GHz)	LGA-1366	Feb 28th ‘10
Core i7 880	Lynnfield	4 + HT	3.06 GHz (tb: 3.73 GHz)	LGA-1156	Q2, 2010
Core i5 680	Clarkdale	2 + HT	3.60 GHz (tb: 3.80 GHz)	LGA-1156	May 2010
Core i3 550	Clarkdale	2 + HT	3.20 GHz	LGA-1156	Q2, 2010

? Information in Debate

[Author's Update]

As an update to this story, on February 2nd, Fudzilla released information stating that the Core i7 970 will be a 6 core, 32nm Gulftown based processor; the original source as also appended this information. If this report is in fact true then one thing is clear; Intel needs to seriously give their head a shake (and fire their marketting team) when it comes to the naming schemes which they promised to be much clearer for consumers. With the current Core i7 975 edition being a 4 core Bloomfield based chip, hiding an entirely new i7 970 Gulftown chip, somewhere in the middle of an old product line is… ridiculous.

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Corsair Prepping 3.5″ 512GB SSD

Along with the news that Corsair has launched two new high performance traditional SSD’s lines, comes rumour of a not so traditional product; a 3.5 inch 512GB solid state drive.

The technical specs are scant,however initial reports from Hexus.net suggest the device will feature a beefy 128MB cache and provide impressive speeds of 240mb/s write and 200mb/s read.

The image of the unit shows that the device may simply be a 3.5″ dock, and suggests that the drive(s) housed inside are Corsair high performance drives; likely dual 256GB units in a RAID 0 array given the speed.

It’s not said to be cheap, with speculation that dollar and cents figures will run around 1,250GBP or US$1,748. Two of Corsair’s current Xtreme series 256GB drives ring in it at approximately $1,699 CAD.

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AMD ATI Radeon HD 5450 Graphics Accelerator

AMD today announced the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card, the latest addition to the award-winning line-up of ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series graphics cards.

Hardware Canucks has released our full review on the video card with a complete run down on its performance and benefits.

The ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card delivers a state-of-the-art HD multimedia and game experience at a value price. Sharing the same leading edge features found in the critically-acclaimed ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series – support for DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology and ATI Stream technology – the ATI Radeon HD 5450 provides an uncompromising Microsoft Windows 7 experience.

• Cutting-edge technology for today’s software: The ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card offers great performance, allowing users to get the true Windows 7 experience with full DirectX 11 support, for less than USD $60 for a 512MB memory configuration.
• Expanded productivity with multi-display technology: Featuring support for ATI Eyefinity multi-monitor technology, the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card helps users be more productive in today’s visually rich applications by expanding their on-screen real estate, putting more information at their fingertips.
• Silent running: Offering leading-edge performance per watt, the ATI Radeon HD 5450 redefines entry level performance and ultra-low power consumption, making it possible for AIB partners to deliver passive cooling models to market in addition to whisper-quiet, single slot fan-cooled versions.
• Rich HD multimedia experience: Home theater buffs will particularly appreciate the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics product. This passively-cooled, ultra-quiet card is a home theater PC builder’s dream, enabling high quality, high-definition home theater experiences. The home theater experience is enriched with features such as HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio for the ultimate media PC.

“The ATI Radeon HD 5450 offers consumers another next-generation graphics product from AMD, and further reinforces our price-performance value at a wide range of price points,” said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Division. “With the addition of the ATI Radeon HD 5450, home theater enthusiasts and casual gamers have access to cutting-edge features and solid performance at an incredible value.”

The ATI Radeon HD 5450 is available immediately from a number of partners, including ASUS, ASK, Club 3D, DMM, GBT, HIS, LDLC.com, MSI, Sapphire, TUL, VT and XFX. For more information, visit the product page.

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Gigabyte Launches PCI-E USB 3.0 Add-In Card

Gigabyte is taking steps to allow more “dated” PC’s to embrace the movement to USB3.0 with the introduction of its new PCI-E expansion card, the GA-USB3.0.

USB 3.0 still hasn’t widely caught on with a majority of motherboard manufacturer’s; most opting to only include a one or two connections on only their premiere lineup.

Gigabyte is offering this card as an separate item for anyone to purchase and install. It operates on a PCI-Ex1 expansion slot, offers two USB3.0 connections and requires power from a typical molex connection. In typical Gigabyte fashion the card is built on blue 2oz copper PCB and is based on an NEC USB 3.0 controller.

The device is currently available from many local or online retailers for a list price of $39.99 USD.

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Silverstone Announces HDDBoost – The SSD Experience with the HDD Space

Silverstone has struck innovation gold (provided it works as well as it sounds) with its latest announcement about HDDBoost, a technology that combines both SDD’s and mechanical hard drives into one large, fast storage device.

Simply put, HDDBoost connects a traditional 3.5 HDD of any size, with the a super fast 2.5inch SSD of your choice, and claims to improve speed of the new “combined” storage drive by up to 70% over the mechanical.

The device connects the two drives through a physical adapter that eliminates the need for software or drivers. It works by creating a sequential mirror of front-end data of the hard drive immediately after installation, onto the solid state drive. Thus, files that are most commonly used will be read from the SSD resulting in access times of under 1ms, over 10 times faster than traditional drives. To reduce writes, HDDBOOST stores the initial mirror data on the SSD, putting the rest on the HDD. Consequently, most of the data will still be read from the hard disk, but will reduce the amounts of writes done to the SSD.

The drive is currently only available in Japan, and has been given a price of 37 Euro ($50USD). North American availability is unknown.

A full run down on the details of HDDBoost can be found on Silverstone’s Website

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