Today we are going to talk about a very interesting new cooler that uses pipes filled with liquid metal and an electromagnetic pump.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">Sapphire is bringing a constant stream of passively cooled 5xxx series GPUs to the market &ndash; if you recall, we reported on the Sapphire HD5550 Ultimate only a couple of months ago. This time, they have another iteration to introduce to the market &ndash; the HD5670.&nbsp; With HDMI, Dual-Link DVI and DisplayPort connections, the card will support three monitors in an ATI Eyefinity configuration with a suitable DisplayPort monitor or active display adapter.&nbsp; DirectX 11 and CrossFireX support comes as standard.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/3785/sapphire-hd5670-ultimate-announced">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

Demand for mini-ITX boards built around Intel’s socket 1156 has been rather high this year, and as a result, vendors like DFI, ECS, Intel and Zotac have enjoyed free reign of sales despite releasing products that don’t necessarily live up to or meet user expectations. Going mini-ITX means there will always be a few compromises on the hardware/peripheral front (many of which users are prepared to stomach), but what makes things less palatable all-round is when boards are delivered with partially functional BIOSes that lack any real finesse or control of key features. Sensing an opportunity, Gigabyte has stepped in to the fray with the keenly priced H55N-USB3 (MSRP $105) and is looking for a slice of the mini-ITX pie. It’s certainly a welcome move, because in general, Gigabyte delivers feature-packed BIOSes that are well laid out and easy to use.

We’ve been lucky enough to get acquainted with Gigabyte’s H55N-USB3 motherboard over the past week, and for once have our review ready around launch time. We’ll tell you right now that we rather like this little board, there are a few things that need attention, but overall it’s the best socket 1156 mini-ITX motherboard that’s passed through our hands to date.

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In this corner, weighing in at nearly eight pounds…

One of the benefits of reviewing desktop hardware is the way PCs tend to come together like a combination of Lego bricks. Individual components are typically fairly easy to test against each other, often requiring as little as a simple swap. While notebooks have made great strides in becoming more customizable, testing mobile video hardware can still be a mess. That's why we're fortunate that Clevo produces a notebook capable of supporting top-of-the-line graphics solutions from both AMD and NVIDIA camps, and we're doubly fortunate that AVADirect was kind enough to send us not one but two of their builds based on the Clevo W860CU.

These laptops are configured absolutely identically except for a crucial difference: one is equipped with NVIDIA's flagship GeForce GTX 285M, and the other with AMD's flagship Mobility Radeon HD 5870. These are the fastest (current) single chip mobile graphics solutions from either vendor. NVIDIA just announced their upcoming GeForce GTX 480M, which will boost performance (and power consumption) and very likely take a clear lead over today's combatants, but we'll hold off on saying more about the 480M until we can actually get one for testing.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">ASRock's current X58 line-up consist of the SuperComputer ($275), Deluxe3 ($225), Deluxe, and the Extreme3's predecessor, the Extreme (AT review, $170). The Extreme3 is available today for $190. Other products in this price range that the Extreme3 is competing with are the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R at $189, the MSI Pro-E for $190, the MSI Pro-E USB3 for $200, and the Foxconn FlamingBlade at $180.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The ASRock X58 Extreme3 is available (at time of writing) for $189.99, one dollar above the EX58-UD3R.&nbsp; For your extra dollar, a plethora of extra features over the Gigabyte board are available on the ASRock board - a full set of 6 DIMM slots for DDR3 memory, USB3 compatibility, SATA 6Gb/s connectivity, three PCIe slots (x16, x16, x4), Power/Clear CMOS/Reset buttons, and support for DDR3 ECC memory.&nbsp; The main question is whether this board performs as well as the UD3R, given any of these extra features, or even above the ASRock Extreme, which is $20 cheaper. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> What we want to see in a budget board is finesse and capability - a BIOS that works, compatibility with components, and something that runs happily above stock.&nbsp; While the best budget boards undoubtedly won't have all the bells and whistles of a premium enthusiast board, if it runs decent and we can play around without too many issues, and the price is right, then it will sell.&nbsp; Off the bat, the ASRock Extreme3 is a happy little runner, with a few issues.&nbsp; We've had this board running for a couple of weeks now, with an overclock, in a variety of situations, and it's a board worth considering if USB3 and SATA6Gb/s are two features you're dying to have with a Socket 1366 processor on a budget.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> In this review, We&rsquo;re pitting the Extreme3 against the board that has been the stalwart of my PC cavalcade - the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R, revision 1.0.&nbsp; The EX58-UD3R appeared on the market in Q4 2008, and is still one of the best budget X58 boards available in terms of capability and performance.&nbsp; ASRock have known their competition for over a year, so they have to show that their product can provide a distinct improvement over the competition.&nbsp; The marketed additions of USB3 and SATA 6Gb/s is a start, but ASRock is having trouble applying BIOS polish to the motherboard, which we will explain later.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/3751/asrock-x58-extreme3an-enthusiast-x58-motherboard-at-a-budget-price">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>