GeCube X300, NV Silencer 5, Designtechnica Editorial and More

Good morning everyone, welcome to HotHardware.  Things in my personal life have been acting like a pendulum over the past few weeks.  With my fair-share of ups and downs, I am almost at the point where I need to switch to a digital clock; maybe this one ;)  Nonetheless, my inbox is filling up quiet nicely so I think it is time to purge it of some news...

 GeCube X300 and X600 Graphics Cards Compared @ Tweakers

"ATI's release of the X series of DX9 VPU's has been one of success for the already popular graphics chip makers. The Radeon brand on release gave ATI a new lease on life, and nVidia a high problem to worry about; in fact it gave nVidia a good kick to the kerb, as ATI Radeon 9xxx series took over as the most powerful graphics chip on the market."

 HTPCnews.com Review: NV Silencer 5

"When it comes to silently cooling the ultra high end video cards these days, the option list isn't long and one main company that comes to mind is Arctic Cooling.  Today HTPCnews takes a look at the Arctic Cooling NV5 Cooler, which is made solely for cooling the Nvidia 6800 series cards.  They test its noise performance along with it's overall cooling performance in comparison to the stock cooler on a NV6800 card."

 Designtechnica Editorial: Thinking Inside of the Box

"I've just nailed Eudora's send button with a click, sending a ganged review of home-theater-in-a-box systems to my editor at a major men's magazine. In the normal course of things I don't go out of my way looking for excuses to review these things—let alone review a whole bunch of them at once. But the muse beckoned, strongly backed up by the state of my checking account, and soon my wisdom will hit newsstands on beautifully designed pages scented with men's cologne."

 AMD Athlon64 4000+ @ LostCircuits

"The release of the Athlon64 4000+ and FX55 is about to extend AMD's leadership in the desktop domain but it also raises new questions about the validity of the performance rating and consequent naming convention. Multiple processors are branded with the same name on the basis of cache size vs. clock speed and memory interface and in the end, there is a wealth of confusion lingering on. Into this scenario are released the two new top contendors, that is the Athlon64 4000+ and the FX55. We were looking at the 4000+ in comparison to the 3800+ released a few months ago and, of course also in comparison to the competition in house and from Intel."

 Scythe Kama CPU Cooler @ Phoronix

"Scythe, a company focused on manufacturing reliable cooling components, has eight CPU coolers on the market right now. They also offer hard drive cooling, a fan-less case, and other additional cooling accessories. Will the Scythe Kama perform up to expectations or will it be another heatsink to throw into storage?"

 Steelpad S&S Mouse Surface @ TechFreaks

"It all comes down to one question, which is the better pad: the Steelpad S&S or the Xtrac Hammer? By a slight margin, the Steelpad S&S. The slight margin can be attributed to many circumstances, the first being that the S&S has only been used for two-weeks, not nearly enough time to show any signs of wear or dullness. The Xtrac Hammer, on the other hand, has been my primary mouse-pad for a bit over six months, and not until recently had it shown any signs of wear."

Time to head to the day job.  I will see back here in a few hours :) - Cheers