Lite-On SOHW-1633S, Half Life 2 Benchmarks, and more!

I'm back! That's right folks, my faithful internet has been down since Sunday, and because of that I had to sit and stare at my HL2 CD's as they collected dust. Oh well, at least this time wasn't as bad as when my internet was slower than Dial-Up for two months. Before I play HL2 though, I'm here to bring you fine people the news, so let's get started...

ABIT AA8 and AG8 - Intel Socket 775 in Style @ TweakTown

"It is ABIT's turn in the spotlight today as we provide a look into two of their newest motherboards, the AA8 and AG8. Each are designed specifically to work with Intel's new Socket 775 processors along with DDR (on the AG8) and DDR-2 memory (on the AA8). After taking a look at both motherboards we compare the performance of each to determine which the best choice is. Intel 915 or 925X? Let's find out now!"

Lite-On SOHW-1633S @ Bjorn3d.com

"Being a major player in the optical drive market, Lite-On is no stranger to the latest technologies available. For instance, Lite-On currently offers several drives capable of writing to DVD+R DL media and one of these drives (the SOHW-1653S) offers write speeds as fast as any other drive available today for almost any media. Today, I will actually be looking at the SOHW-1633S, which was Lite-On's top-of-the-line model until the 1653S was released. The 1633S simply offers slower write speeds for DVD-R and DVD+R DL media."

Corsair TwinX1024-4400C25PT DDR550 Kit Review @ OCTools.com

"If you want only the fastest Dual DDR modules at aggressive timings, then the Corsair TWINX1024-4400C25 is an excellent choice. With these modules, you'll be assured that the memory won't be the limiting factor in your quest to push your system to the limits, be it Intel or AMD."

GIGABYTE GeForce 6600 GV-NX66128DP @ nV News

"PCI-Express is here! Today nV News reviews Gigabyte's 6600 PCI-Express video card. This is our first Gigabyte product to review and we are eager to see just what they provide in this new format. I have personally owned several Gigabyte motherboards and found all to be high quality, trouble-free units but this is the first Gigabyte video card that I have laid my hands on. So to begin, let's take a look at the card."

Half Life 2 Benchmarks @ HardOCP

"As for calling one video card a "winner" over the other, it just does not seem feasible and would likely be irresponsible to do so. ATI's X800 series has not thrashed NVIDIA's 6800 series silicon as many expected."

How To Build Home Theater PC @ The Tech Zone

"So I concluded my new place needed a media room with a home theater in it and being the hardcore computer guy that I am decided a normal run of the mill home theater setup just wasn't going to do. This is where the idea for building a Home Theater PC or HTPC came in. The ability to watch TV, DVD movies, surf the web and play 3D games on a big plasma screen was just too tempting to pass up."