Given that Gateway just pushed out a round of updates including the relatively ginormous P Series, we reckon it was only logical to expect a review shortly. To be frank, the P-6831FX critiqued over at HotHardware is far from being the most potent machine with a 17-inch panel, but unlike many of its luxurious competitors, this one is actually affordable. So, how much gaming joy can $1,349.99 bring you? Quite a bit when the 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS and 3GB of RAM are included. Reviewers found gaming performance to be downright remarkable, though the 1.67GHz CPU did hamper it a bit in other areas. It should be noted that the unit now arrives with a slightly faster CPU among other minor extras, so if it was good then, we're guessing it's a runaway winner now.

If you just shelled out some pretty pennies for the a high-speed, low-power SSD, Tom's Hardware may have stumbled onto some findings that won't sit well. According to a rigorous benchmarking session, they discovered that not only do the drives not save you battery power... they eat more of it. How is this possible you ask? Well mechanical drives only hit peak drainage when the actuator has to move the heads, whereas SSDs use full power whenever they're in use, so the end result is actually a diminished efficiency. What that means is that the hype over "green" drives may be just that: pure hype. On the other hand, you're still getting a drive with no moving parts, which at least makes your data more secure, if not more eco-friendly.

[Via Eeeuser; Thanks, Tony]

Western Digital's hasty VelociRaptor already got reviewed by its lonesome, but for those thinking of getting a RAID system into their rig, HotHardware has taken a trio of 'em, setup a RAID 5 array and put the drives through their collaborative paces. The configuration was made possible thanks to an Areca PCIe X8 hardware RAID card, and the results were rather impressive -- to no one's surprise, might we add. Across the entire volume, performance was generally linear save for a few small valleys along the way, burst speed was 598MB/sec and average read speed was 209.4MB/sec, which pretty much blew the doors off of everything that came before it. Number lovers, there's more where this came from in the read link below.

Yeah, that bench. NVIDIA's just-announced-yesterday GeForce 9800 GTX+ has already been used and abused for your satisfaction, and the folks over at PC Perspective have the benchmarks to prove it. The 55nm-based card was pit against an 8800 GT and AMD's extraordinarily fresh Radeon HD 4850, but we're not going to insert any spoilers in this space (okay, so it fared well... really well). All the graphs and screen captures you crave are waiting just down there.

[Thanks, Ryan]

Surely you remember that G600 that MSI showcased at CeBIT, right? We know you're sitting in stunned silence just thinking back, so we'll move forward anyway. The crew over at TweakTown managed to get ahold of the GX600X TurboBook, and rather than just frolicking in fields of flowers with it, they put this puppy to the test. Unlike the vast majority of MSI lappies, this particular one manages to stand out somewhat, with a relatively loud design and a fairly potent set of components to boot. Reviewers found it to be a "peak performer" with "excellent overclocking capabilities," and while the logos may catch a few eyes, these critics felt that those very decals may deter folks from buying an otherwise solid machine. Nevertheless, head on down to the full review -- you may find yourself surprisingly attracted to an MSI. Imagine that.

[Via I4U News]

Ooh, shiny! ASUS' CES-announced M50S has finally found its way out of whatever lair it has been tucked away in, and thankfully, the shutterbugs over at PC Perspective snapped a few shots for the world to see. Initial impressions are that it should handle most gaming needs with ease, yet won't destroy your back when toting it from LAN party to LAN party. The built-in Blu-ray burner and multi-function trackpad are quite nice, too. Hit up the read link for the full preview -- a bona fide review should be following shortly.

[Thanks, Ryan]

If you'll recall, we already witnessed a pre-production Wolfdale CPU outpace its competition back in August of last year, but the real deal has finally arrived. Over at Hot Hardware, the folks were able to crack open a retail Core 2 Duo E8500 processor, which comes in at 3.16GHz and features 6MB of L2 cache, a 1,333MHz FSB speed and is built on 45-nanometer technology. When put to the test, reviewers found this luscious piece of silicon to be quite the performer, noting that it was probably a better choice for gamers than a low-end quad-core chip. Still, with an expected price of just under three bills, it wasn't exactly seen as the greatest of values, but if you've got the coin and happen to fit the market, the "Recommended" badge tells you everything you need to know.

Sure, more speed is great, but on OS X most bumps don't have an appreciable effect on everyday work (unless all you're doing is video encoding). We were more interested in what Intel's Penryn processors can do for the MBP's heat envelope, so we maxed out both CPU cores in this brand new machine at let 'em crank for a half an hour. Our test machine may or may not compare to a later 3rd-gen MBP in terms of heat efficiency, but here's the quick rundown:

Core Duo (2.16GHz)

• Peak: 195° F, fans over 5000 RPM
• Average: 185° F, fans about 4900 RPM
• Enclosure (bottom): very hot to the touch
• Enclosure (top): fairly hot to the touch

Penryn Core 2 Duo (2.5GHz)

• Peak: 176° F, fans about 3400 RPM
• Average: 173° F, fans about 2500 RPM (much quieter)
  
• Enclosure (bottom): warm to the touch
• Enclosure (top): warm to fairly hot to the touch

The usual Xbench tests are after the break.

Forget that shrinking nonsense Intel keeps talking about -- squeezing battery-sipping processors inside minuscule form factors -- it's totally played. We got here some numbers on Intel's new Skulltrail gaming platform, featuring dual quad-core QX9775 processors and other ridiculous specifications designed for besting the likes of AMD and that pesky Crysis frame rate. If you want to get into all the tech nitty gritty, the read links have all the bullet points to satisfy, but here's the long and the short of it: those eight Xeon cores and various other server-inspired innards blow away every sort of competition in multi-threaded applications, and other single-threaded CPU-heavy tests put the QX9775 near or at the front. Unfortunately, the board is held back by its use of DDR2 800 FB-DIMMs, which landed it a bit behind the QX9770 and QX9650 Core 2 Extreme in Crysis benchmarks -- one of the few benchmarks that Skulltrail even felt any competition from the rest of the pack. It seems like the board mainly shines when it has multiple graphics cards to back it up, and it's also clear that the Crysis Everest won't be bested by CPU juice alone. There aren't any specifics on price or release date yet, but expect to pay $600 or more per CPU.

Read - Hot Hardware
Read - PC Perspective
Read - Techgage
Read - Custom PC

No one should be surprised, but if you were looking for a speed freak of a laptop, you're going to want to glaze those lustful eyes over the MacBook Air. While the new hotness has a speedy memory bus, overall its performance is dramatically smushed by its integrated graphics, anemic 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor, and 1.8-inch hard drive. Yes, you can officially call the MacBook Air the slowest machine Apple makes -- but you already figured as much, right? No one buys an ultraportable for its real ultimate power.

Just over a fortnight after the TabletKiosk's Sahara i440D Slate PC began shipping out to interested buyers, the niche machine has now been reviewed and benchmarked for those still mulling a purchase. The folks over at TabletPCReview noted that this machine was a breeze to tote around, had a solid feel, sported a satisfactory (though not awe-inspiring) display, and performed sufficiently enough for those not looking to actually replace their (likely more robust) laptop. Additionally, the pen functionality was highly praised as was the respectable array of ports, but the amount of noise and heat that this bad boy emitted was a slight turn-off. Still, the Sahara i440D benchmarked well against similar alternatives, and while we wouldn't recommend 3D gaming or motion picture rendering on it, it seems like a solid choice for those in the market. Check out a videoed extension of the review after the jump.

Although we certainly noticed that Apple's latest iMac felt snappy enough, the folks over at Primate Labs have cranked out a few numbers for the data freaks in the crowd to chew on. Granted, these benchmarks do not include the Core 2 Extreme iMac nor are they the most complete set of tests we've ever seen, but they do seem to give those on the fence a decent look at what level of performance increases they'll be dealing with. Put simply, the new 2.4GHz 24-inch iMac posted "modest gains" across the board compared to the previous iterations that clocked in at 2.33GHz / 2.16GHz, and while the results don't seem earth-shattering, those who rely on "memory-intensive applications (like Aperture or Photoshop)" would likely benefit most from the improved "integer, floating point. and memory / stream performance." As you'd expect, the full skinny on the test results await you in the read link.

[Via AppleInsider]

Considering that solid state discs -- although still noticeably more expensive that traditional HDDs -- are quickly plummeting in price, it's about time a brief roundup was executed in order to pinpoint which SSD was best for you. Granted, CustomPC's evaluation only included a handful of options, but the in-depth testing process found a few glaring losers and even fewer runaway winners. As expected, reviewers used a number of read / write testing applications to judge the speed differences and real-world performance increases on seven SSDs ranging from 8GB to 32GB in size. Coming out on top was Samsung's 32GB drive, which proved both "quick and silent" in their testing; however, the 18GB STEC Zeus-IOPS proved the hands-down winner in terms of sheer speed. 'Course, we highly doubt many of you will be snagging the latter after witnessing its £7,050 ($14,461) pricetag, but a number of slightly slower performers including PQI's Turbo Plus 2.5 could very well provide the boost you desire without (totally) breaking the bank.

Nah, it's no BlueGene L supercomputer, but IBM's latest dual-core microprocessor runs at a cool 4.7GHz while sporting 8MB of total cache per chip. The device reportedly runs "twice as fast" and packs four times the cache as the POWER5, and boasts a processor bandwidth of 300Gbps. Interestingly, the massive power increase doesn't seem to come with a boost in energy requirements, as IBM claims that the 65-nanometer POWER6 somehow ups its game while "using nearly the same amount of electricity" as its predecessor. The company plans on shoving the new darling into the System p570 server, and preliminary testing showed that all four of the "most widely used performance benchmarks for Unix servers" were shattered by its CPU. Unfortunately, there's no word on pricing nor availability just yet, but we're anticipating a bit of sticker shock when it does finally land.

[Via LinuxDevices]

If you'd been pinching your pennies waiting for Apple to unleash an update to the MacBook side of things, your wait was ended last week, but if you've been wondering just how much difference the increase from 2MB to 4MB of L2 cache (and the 0.17GHz bump, too) made, here's your sign. MacLife was able to get its hands around a $1,099 base unit, and rather than carefully coaxing into the world, it broke out the whipping stick and put this bad boy to work. The new machine was pit against the old base MacBook (at 1.83GHz) and the previous 2GHz BlackBook, and while increases in efficiency weren't exactly considerable, reviewers found them at least noticeable. The latest machine shaved seconds off here and there from iMovie exporting and Photoshopping, and while most tests showed just single digit improvements, the iPhoto test did display a 22-percent gain compared to the previous 1.83GHz MacBook. Of course, these preliminary tests aren't anything out of the ordinary, but keep an eye on the read link for more fleshed out testing (including the refreshed BlackBook) in the coming days.

[Via MacSlash]