Sapphire X800 Pro, Asus A8V, WD RAID & More

Welcome back HotHardware fans!  Considering it has only been a few hours since my last post, things have been busy.  After checking the new mailbox, I was greeted with quite a few noteworthy items.  Here's what we've got so far...

 Sapphire Toxic X800 PRO VIVO Review @ Beyond3D: "Beyond the cooling system, and the obvious PCB colour change, the rest of the board appears to adhere to the ATI reference design. Removing the heatsink from the board reveals Samsung 1.6ns GDDR3 RAM, which should be capable of a maximum operating speed of 600MHz, which well beyond the rates that even the "APE" overclocking runs it at."

 Hitachi 57S700 HDTV @ DesignTechnica:

"If you want to experience true High Definition television and watch DVD movies featuring sharp and crisp color images, look no further than the Hitachi 57S700 (which will soon be replaced by their 57S715 – the only difference is that the S715 includes HDMI instead of DVI). Hitachi's HDTV sets offer the consumer "state-of-the-art" technology with a terrific feature package in a very stylish and handsome cabinetry. It's a set for today and tomorrow featuring an integrated HDTV tuner and QAM cable tuner. By including both DVI and 1394, this set won't become obsolete for many years to come."

 Western Digital Caviar RAID Edition Hard Disks @ GamePC:

"Today at the GamePC Labs, we've taken a close look at Western Digital's new Caviar RAID Edition (RE) drives. The Caviar RE drives boast many of the same technologies seen in the consumer level Caviar Special Edition (SE) drives, but the RAID Edition drive boasts higher tolerances, RAID specific features, and lower noise levels. We've compared the Caviar RE/SE drives against each other in RAID and non-RAID scenarios, along with performance numbers against WD's Raptor and Maxtor's new DiamondMax 10 hard drives."

 Ars Technica System Guide: Performance and Ultimate Gaming Boxes:

"Major upgrades are often driven by software, not hardware. And one of the biggest software categories driving upgrades is games. Excitement over dual-channel memory or the NVIDIA 6800/ATI X800 series video cards is great, but without a compelling need to upgrade, excitement does not always generate sales. Far Cry brought many older systems to their knees a few months ago. Today, Doom3 does the same to many almost-new systems."

 Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard @ TR:

"WHEN IT COMES to motherboards, it takes a lot to impress me. Maybe it's the fact that I've seen so many mobos pass through the Benchmarking Sweatshop, or maybe I'm just getting old... and crabby. Either way, it takes a special board to capture my attention. Something new, something innovative, and preferably something priced within the reach mere mortals.

Like I said, it's not often that I'm really impressed. But it happens, rarely, and most recently with Asus' Socket 939 A8V Deluxe. What makes this board so special? Read on to find out."

 Yeong Yang YY-5601 Mars ATX Mid-Tower Case Review @ 3DX:

"The Mars YY-5601 Case is not as flashy as some of the Cases we've reviewed, but it provides a solid design with easy to use features and allows for a quick and easy installation. If you are on a tight budget and need a no frills Case with a Power Supply Unit, the Mars YY-5601 may just fit the bill. For the mere price of $52 the YY-5601 is a Case that provides great value for the dollar."

That's going to have to hold you over for now!  Check back later though, we have some good stuff on tap...