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 is attempting to tackle Shuttle’s stranglehold on the micro-PC market with the launch of the C3M266 motherboard coupled with a C3 processor...

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.

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.

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.

Triplex Xabre Ultra 600

The 'Ti4800SE' tag of Albatron's graphics card doesn't signify that it's a superior extension of the GeForce4 Ti4600 – in fact, it's really just an NV28 (the AGP 8x of the GeForce4 Ti) version of NVIDIA's Ti4400, coupled with a slightly increased core clock speed.

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.

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?

Bose-s 3-2-1 is a 2.1 speaker DVD, CD and MP3 CD player whose claim to fame is the ability to produce accurate surround sound from just three speakers. Each satellite contains two discreet drivers that redirect audio in specific directions to mimic 5.1.

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.

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?

Mitsubishi's DV181 is almost identical to the BenQ FP882 we reviewed in last month's Labs (December 2002, page 76).

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.

Primera's Bravo is designed to produce large numbers of professional quality CDs on short order: it combines a 40x IDE CD burner and a CD printer, and it also comes with a robotic arm to automate the production process.

NVIDIAs tweaked GeForce4 MX440 graphics card runs faster than the original