The Athlon XP 2700+ represents a significant leap forward for the Athlon line – it solves a long-term problem by stepping up the default frontside bus (FSB) speed from 266MHz to 333MHz. This means that the Athlon XP can finally run in sync with 333MHz DDR RAM. While most currently available Athlon motherboards support 333MHz DDR, there is virtually no performance boost between this and 266MHz DDR when running an Athlon XP with a 266MHz FSB. The extra speed offered by the RAM quite simply goes to waste, because the CPU can't keep up with it.

The Athlon XP 2700+ represents a significant leap forward for the Athlon line – it solves a long-term problem by stepping up the default frontside bus (FSB) speed from 266MHz to 333MHz.

Like the KT4 Ultra, the ASUS A7V8X is an Athlon XP board that uses the VIA KT400 chipset. It packs in a truckload of extras, such as Serial ATA, FireWire, Gigabit LAN, AGP 8X and even RAID.

VIA's KT400 is the latest in a very long line of Athlon chipsets. While it doesn't really deliver a huge performance boost over its predecessor, the KT333, it does have support for a number of upcoming technologies, including Serial ATA, AGP 8X and PC3200 DDR RAM.

Intel has promised that Hyper-Threading (HT) will deliver increased efficiency and decrease the amount of time taken to accomplish multiple processes. But is it really all that it’s cracked up to be?

The core of SATOs SS51G is an incredibly tiny Shuttle XPC. These bare-bones boxes have been on the market for close to six months now, and have proven effective (if not over-whelming) performers and a very popular choice for building a lounge-room PC for playing music and DVD movies.

Intel has promised that Hyper-Threading (HT) will deliver increased efficiency and decrease the amount of time taken to accomplish multiple processes. But is it really all that it's cracked up to be?