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Sandy Bridge is not only high-performance quad-core CPUs. There are also inexpensive dual-core LGA1155 processors in this family, and today we are going to talk about them in our new article.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;"> Two weeks ago we saw the paper launch of the </span><span style="font-size: small;">Radeon HD 6450</span><span style="font-size: small;">, the low-end member of AMD&rsquo;s Northern Islands family of GPUs. It was a solid product for HTPC use and a very notable improvement over the 5450 it replaced, but it was an uncharacteristically delayed launch for AMD. At the same time we noted that the Northern Islands family had one more GPU we had not seen: Turks.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> As it turns out, Turks-based video cards will be launching alongside the 6450 today, delivering all of the remaining Northern Islands products in a single push. Turks will be powering the Radeon HD 6670 and Radeon HD 6570, replacing the Redwood-based Radeon HD 5670 and Radeon HD 5570 respectively. Considering that we saw AMD deliver a solid update for their low-end lineup with the 6450, will we see the same with Turks and the 6670/6570? Let&rsquo;s find out.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/4278/amds-radeon-hd-6670-radeon-hd-6570">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

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Meet the Antec HCG-750

We've tested many Antec PSUs over the years, so this certainly isn't a case of "long time no see". However, most of the Antec products we've reviewed have been higher-end designs with unique features or abilities—for instance, there was the "sandwich" PCB in the HCP-1200 and the environmentally friendly design of the EarthWatts Green 380W. There's nothing out of the ordinary in the HCG data sheets other than the powerful +12V rails. The HCG series seems to represent most PSUs: it's ordinary and "boring". So what makes this PSU into an Antec product?

For starters, plenty of manufacturers have attractive power supplies, but the robust case and red highlights are at least unusual. We've seen designs like this in the higher cost/wattage PSUs like the 850W Enermax Revolution85+ and HuntKeys' X7 1200W. Now Antec brings this aesthetic to lower wattages and prices.

That's all well and good, but Antec cares about quality. They have chosen very expensive capacitors from Rubycon. In addition, as our Antec contact Christoph (Business Unit Manager at Antec) likes to say, "more is better", meaning that two main caps are better than one. The ball bearing fans also last longer than cheap sleeve bearing models, which is another minor upgrade. While these simple elements aren't unusual for PSUs in this price range, they do set our expectations and we're expecting a good showing from the HCG-750.

On the following pages we will see if the caps can reduce ripple and noise and if the fan runs quietly. Moreover, good results can help compensate for the non-modular cables, as they are a disadvantage for most customers. Let's begin with a closer look to its characteristics and delivery contents.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">Coming up hot on the heels of last week&rsquo;s Radeon HD 6450 launch, today NVIDIA quietly launched the GT 520, their low-end video card for the 500 series. It&rsquo;s based on GF119, a GF11x GPU with no immediate analogue from GF10x series, but has already been shipping in mobile products as the GeForce GT 410M and 520M. In NVIDIA&rsquo;s existing desktop lineup, it should replace the GeForce GT 220.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/4268/nvidia-releases-geforce-gt-520">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

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Nvidia, the founder of the multi-card configuration concept, has been standing by the advantages of this approach for many years. In reality, “3dfx’s heritage” is a blessing for some and a curse for others. So, how are things with GeForce GTX 550 Titanium SLI configuration? Let’s find out!

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The board is based on Intel X58 Express chipset and is designed for LGA1366 processors. It boasts convenient design, extensive settings for system configuring and overclocking and is incredibly energy-efficient.

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Intel started integrating the new Sandy Bridge processor microarchitecture not in the upper price segment, but in the mainstream LGA1155. This resulted in internal competition between the new LGA1155 and the old LGA1366 processors. So, which one will win in this round, the progressive Sandy bridge or the previous-generation Gulftown?

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As a desktop user I never really jumped on the external storage craze. I kept a couple of terabyte drives in RAID-0 inside my chassis and there's always the multi-TB array in the lab in case I needed more storage. External drives were always neat to look at, but I never really needed any. My notebook's internal storage was always enough.

With the arrival of Sandy Bridge in notebooks however I've given the notebook as a desktop replacement thing a try. I've got enough random hardware if I need a fast gaming machine in a pinch, but for everything else I'm strictly notebook these days. As a result I've come to realize just how precious portable storage is. Most reasonably portable notebooks have one usable 2.5" bay at most (two if you don't mind sacrificing an optical drive). Network storage is great but what if you need something portable on the go with you?

I'm obviously a staunch advocate of spending your internal real estate on an SSD, but if you need the space you've gotta go mechanical for your external storage. If portability is what matters, an external 2.5" hard drive can be quite attractive as they're lightweight and can be powered over USB.

In the 2.5" world there are three predominant thicknesses available: 7mm, 9.5mm and 12.5mm. Most notebook drives are 9.5mm. You'll notice that Intel even ships many of its SSDs with a removable spacer to make them 9.5mm tall in order to maintain physical compatibility with as many notebooks as possible.

Thicker drives are needed to accommodate more platters inside, but as platter densities increase so do the capacities of thinner drives. A couple of years ago Seagate announced the world's first 7mm thick 2.5" hard drive and earlier today, it announced the thinnest external 2.5" drive: the GoFlex Slim.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;"> The last couple of weeks after the recent </span><span style="font-size: small;">GeForce GTX 550 Ti launch</span><span style="font-size: small;"> have been more eventful than I had initially been expecting. As you may recall the GTX 550 Ti launched at $150, a price tag too high for its sub-6850 performance. I&rsquo;m not sure in what order things happened &ndash; whether it was a price change or a competitive card that came first &ndash; but GTX 550 Ti prices have finally come down for some of the cards. The average price of the cheaper cards is now around $130, a more fitting price given the card&rsquo;s performance.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> The timing for this leads into today&rsquo;s launch. AMD is launching a new card, the Radeon HD 6790, at that same $150 price point. Based on the same Barts GPU that powers the Radeon HD 6800 series, this is AMD&rsquo;s customary 3<sup>rd</sup> tier product that we&rsquo;ve come to expect after the 4830 and 5830. As we&rsquo;ll see NVIDIA had good reason to drop the price on the GTX 550 if they didn&rsquo;t already, but at the same time AMD must still deal with the rest of the competition: NVIDIA&rsquo;s GTX 460 lineup, and of course AMD itself. So just how well does the 6790 stack up in the crowded $150 price segment? Let&rsquo;s find out.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/4260/amds-radeon-hd-6790-coming-up-short-at-150">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

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<p><span style="font-size: small;"> It&rsquo;s been </span><span style="font-size: small;">quite a while</span><span style="font-size: small;"> since we&rsquo;ve looked at triple-GPU Crossfire and SLI performance &ndash; or for that matter looking at GPU scaling in-depth. While NVIDIA in particular likes to promote multi-GPU configurations as a price-practical upgrade path, such configurations are still almost always the domain of the high-end gamer. At $700 we have the recently launched GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 6990, dual-GPU cards whose existence is hedged on how well games will scale across multiple GPUs. Beyond that we move into the truly exotic: triple-GPU configurations using 3 single-GPU cards, and quad-GPU configurations using a pair of the aforementioned dual-GPU cards. If you have the money, NVIDIA and AMD will gladly sell you upwards of $1500 in video cards to maximize your gaming performance.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> These days multi-GPU scaling is a given &ndash; at least to some extent. Below the price of a single high-end card our recommendation is always going to be to get a bigger card before you get more cards, as multi-GPU scaling is rarely perfect and with equally cutting-edge games there&rsquo;s often a lag between a game&rsquo;s release and when a driver profile is released to enable multi-GPU scaling. Once we&rsquo;re looking at the Radeon HD 6900 series or GF110-based GeForce GTX 500 series though, going faster is no longer an option, and thus we have to look at going wider.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> Today we&rsquo;re going to be looking at the state of GPU scaling for dual-GPU and triple-GPU configurations. While we accept that multi-GPU scaling will rarely (if ever) hit 100%, just how much performance are you getting out of that 2<sup>nd</sup> or 3<sup>rd</sup> GPU versus how much money you&rsquo;ve put into it? That&rsquo;s the question we&rsquo;re going to try to answer today.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/4254/triplegpu-performance-multigpu-scaling-part1">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

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