Computer hardware always evolves, and in the interest of making lives more productive technology continues to advance. Gigabyte has recently launched their P55-A series of motherboards on the Intel P55-Express chipset, which incorporate a new 3-3-3 theme of features: Super-Speed USB 3.0 and 3x the USB power output, as well as SATA-3.0 for 6Gbps bandwidth. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 and inspects the new SATA-6G functionality in-depth. Performance will be measured between the Intel Core i7-860 fitted to the LGA1156 socket on the Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 motherboard and the Core i7-920 equipped GA-EX58-UD4P. Testing a Core i7-860 against an i7-920 might not seem fair, and it's a little biased to compare P55 against X58, but the final outcome might just surprise you.

As enthusiasts, we're always interested in the latest monster video cards: the expensive, high-end products that blast through benchmarks and play all your games with buttery-smooth frame rates at the highest resolutions with all the settings maxed out- and sucking a not inconsiderable amount of electricity while doing so! But these products represent only a tiny fraction of the number of video cards sold; the low-to-mid-end cards comprise the bulk of the market. Besides, a GTX285 or Radeon 5870 isn't the ideal solution for every situation: considerations from a limited budget to building a small, quiet system come into play. NVIDIA has been filling out the low-middle end of their video card product line lately, and in this article Benchmark Reviews tests the ASUS ENGT240/DI/512MD5/A video card equipped with with NVIDIA's new GeForce GT240 GPU and 512M of GDDR5 memory.

Mobile storage of music, videos, pictures, files, and pretty much anything else you can think of is rapidly becoming more and more popular. Even the recent release of Windows 7 has seen unheard of amounts of people wanting to install the operating system using external storage devices such as flash drives rather than a DVD. Many workstations in offices don't include any sort of optical or other removable media devices other than USB drives. Seagate has always been a name well associated with storage and their most recent external hard drive series is another push forward helping people with all kinds of storage needs. Benchmark Reviews is taking a look at the Seagate FreeAgent Go 640 GB USB 2.0 External Drive, which is loaded with features, and even software, to make your life easier.

XFX knows that gamers want unmatched performance from their hardware, which is why they now supply ATI Radeon desktop graphics as well as NVIDIA GeForce products. There's no better time for AMD-designed video cards than now, as the Radeon 5800-series has climbed to the top of gamers' most-wanted list. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the XFX Radeon HD5850 HD-585A-ZNFC video card against a large cross-section of modern graphics accelerators and explore the visual quality Microsoft Windows 7 will deliver with DirectX 11. Armed with 1440 shader cores, the 40nm Cypress GPU HD5850 is positioned to offer an excellent value for the upper mid-range and hits the sweet-spot for DX11 gamers.

AMD Phenom II Black Edition CPU's have been a popular choice for enthusiasts and budget-conscious overclockers lately, and Benchmark Reviews decided it was time to focus on AMD in one of our Best CPU Cooler Performance series. In this preview article, Benchmark Reviews tests several CPU coolers on the AM3 socket for the AMD Phenom-II platform. An overclocked AMD Phenom II X4 965 "Black Edition" processor was used (original 140W version), and given a heart-warming 1.55 volts to the vCore so it could reach 4000MHz (4GHz) stable. The heat produced at 1.55V caused at least one product to earn high marks in our tests, while another fell so far below respectible performance that it pains us to expose it.

Benchmark Reviews tested the NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision Gaming Kit when it originally launched back in January, 2009. Comprising a set of battery-powered LCD shutter glasses, the infrared emitter to drive them, and special 120Hz refresh-rate monitors, it enabled high-quality 3D gaming with hundreds of games, as long as you had a sufficiently powerful NVIDIA video card.

In 2010, NVIDIA is planning to extend their 3D Vision technology into still photos, the web experience, gaming laptops, and upcoming 3D televisions. Benchmark Reviews recently attended an NVIDIA one-on-one briefing on these new technologies, which will be formally announced at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.

Computer cases with enough features and cooling to please any gamer are rapidly dropping in price. Manufacturers are noticing the demand for affordable gaming rigs and reacting accordingly. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the LanCool PC-K56W-B Mid-Tower Computer Case. It is part of the recent LanCool Dragon Lord series that helps bring economic relief to gamers searching for the best case for the best price. LanCool is the gaming division of Lian Li, a very well known name in the computer case industry. Benchmark Reviews is here to pit the PC-K56W against other recent additions to the "performance-case-at-a-low-price" arena. Recently, we brought you articles about NZXT's line of such cases. Will LanCool be able to keep up with features such as their tool-free design? Follow along as we find out.

As enthusiasts, we're always interested in the latest monster video cards: the expensive, high-end products that blast through benchmarks and play all your games with buttery-smooth frame rates at the highest resolutions with all the settings maxed out- and sucking a not inconsiderable amount of electricity while doing so! But these products represent only a tiny fraction of the number of video cards sold; the low-to-mid-end cards comprise the bulk of the market. Besides, a GTX285 or Radeon 5870 isn't the ideal solution for every situation: considerations from a limited budget to building a small, quiet system come into play. NVIDIA has been filling out the low-middle end of their video card product line lately, and in this article Benchmark Reviews tests the GIGABYTE GV-N240D5-512I video card equipped with with NVIDIA's new GeForce GT240 GPU and 512M of GDDR5 memory.