Gigabyte's new Canterwood-based GA-8KNXP is, without a doubt, one of the most full-featured motherboards we've ever seen. It incorporates all of the basics offered by the MSI 865PE Neo2 (see below) plus more. The differences between the older 845 and new 865 (Springdale) and 875 (Canterwood) chipsets are primarily feature-based – the 875P is designed to be the ultra-high-end option for extreme power users. As such, it's more expensive but has more niche capabilities.

Gigabyte Maya 2 R9500 Pro

Panasonic's LF-D521U has a lot in common with the LG drive in this issue – in fact, with the exception of two reading speeds, both drives have identical specifications.

Like the Panasonic LF-D521U, this DVD-RW drive is a generation behind the newest ones on the market. As such it lacks a lot in burning speed – in fact most of the newer models on the market are twice as fast.

The difference between 'plus' and 'minus' DVD writers comes down to features. Despite some headway being made by the companies pushing DVD-RW, DVD+RW is still a more flexible format for those interested in creating movies and storing data.

ATI is the current market leader in graphics chips, and offers four varieties of DirectX 9-capable video cards; these are the company's most sophisticated products when it comes to 3D rendering.

9700 Pro

ATI’s new RADEON is impressive...

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.

Uleads DVD Workshop (DW) is a pared-down digital video editor, designed specifically with DVD fans in mind. Its able to work natively with both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, as well as AVIs and even QuickTime movies.