The Musashi is a long, slim, dual fan GPU cooler from Scythe. We installed it on an ATI HD4870, and put it through a grueling torture test against our old favorite, the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1. POSTCRIPT added Nov 29, 2009. See page 8 for details.

The newly released Athlon II X4 630 and 620 finally bring quad core performance to the $100 level. With respective prices of $120 and $100, the high value X4 630 and X4 630 continue AMD's sniping of Intel.

Early morn breakfast at the Marriot Hotel in downtown San Francisco with HP and a hundred-odd journalists, followed by an intro of the company's Skyroom, a hi-def videoconferencing and collaboration tool soon to be available for $149. A short jaunt to the Moscone convention center, up to the big hall on the 3rd floor where 4,000 attendees await the first keynote speaker, Intel CEO Paul Otelinni, surrounded with multiple billboard sized screens and loud rock music. " Moving seamlessly throughout the computing continuum," is the motto of the presentation, which you can view in its entirety at the IDF Press Room within 24 hrs. * Forum discussion.

In our continuing quest for compact, effective and silent CPU coolers, we ran a gladiatorial roundup with competitors from Silverstone, Nexus and Cooler Master seeking to wrest the top spot from the Scythe Big Shuriken.

Integrated all-in-one PCs are becoming more visible, with morphing nettops, Apple iMacs, and now, Lenovo IdeaCentres. The A600 series is Lenovo's first entry into the home desktop PC market, and it has many of the features that endear iMacs to their users.

The Gateway EC1803h has an 11.6" 1366x768 display, a CULV Core 2 Solo 1.4GHz processor, GMA 4500MHD graphics, is only 1" thick and weighs about 3.2lb. Is it a netbook, an ultra-portable, or something in-between? We explore the first of what appears to be a new class of notebooks.

To be a fitting successor to LGA775, Intel's new LGA1156 will have to offer a fair increase in performance and energy efficiency, but not so much to overshadow LGA1366. Lynnfield takes mostly after Nehalem, but requires only a single chipset (the new Platform Controller Hub), has a dual channel memory controller rather than triple, and uses a more aggressive form of Turbo Boost. Our first detailed look at LGA1156.

The market is littered with 10" netbook peas in a pod, not least the dozens of variants by Asus. The 1005HA seems to be special in a few different ways, mainly overall balance and fantastic untethered run time. Our first look since the very first netbooks.

The CP-850 is 1.2" too tall to fit into all but three of Antec's top cases, so its popularity has to be be unnaturally limited. But the electrical and acoustic performance is superlative, especially in those cases, and it comes at an amazingly low price. White elephant or futuristic visionary?

Nexus reaches out to serious gamers with a power supply claimed to be the quietest 850W model available. The company has a long reputation for quiet computer products, so if the idea a quiet PSU for a gaming rig appeals, read on.

SPCR's exploration of new mini-IXT cases continues: The Luxa2 LM100 Mini is as far as you'll get from a junky beige box - it is downright beautiful. It's a highly priced, high quality, low profile Shuttle-like enclosure with a sturdy and elegant aluminum body, a small LCD display and remote control. How fares it against the more pedestrian boxes from Antec and Silverstone that we've reviewed recently?

Silverstone's SG05 and SG06 are mini-ITX cases with a twist: They can house a gaming system with a midrange graphics card. Low noise is also promised in these diminutive "classic" 11-liter breadbox style cases. We take them for a typical SPCR ride, long and hot in our anechoic chamber.

785G is an evolution of 780G that brings some improvements and support for the AM3 socket with DDR3 memory. The onboard graphics chip, dubbed HD 4200, supports DirectX 10.1, HDMI 1.3, UVD 2.0, and Sideport memory which provided a nice performance boost on the more expensive 790GX-based boards.

Big blow-down CPU coolers seem to be making a comeback, at least if these new models from prolific heatsink maker Scythe are indicative. The brand also has a reputation for very quiet fans, so will Zipang 2 and Kabuto jostle into the monolithic lineup of tower coolers at the top of SPCR recommended coolers?

For a gaming machine, a case needs to have lots of ventilation and plenty of room for expansion, especially for extra long graphics cards. The Antec Nine Hundred Two fits the bill: It's spacious, affordable and, hopefully, quiet.