DDR2 is here, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Tim Dean takes a look at the good and bad of tomorrow's memory.

Looking to build your dream machine? We explore the latest components on the market, and give you advice on which ones to hunt down, along with the general price you can expect to pay for each major component.

An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

The Centrino platform has just received a major revision. Tim Dean peers inside Sonoma and takes a look at what we can expect.

Squeeze that extra bit of power out of your existing hardware. Tim Dean looks at the principles of overclocking and examines the potential performance increase.

Underneath all the speculation and marketing hype, the Cell processor might actually herald a revolution in computing. Tim Dean investigates.

Every expert has a toolkit. Tim Dean takes you through the 10 tools any Windows expert cannot live without. So, to give you a head start, here are PC Authority's top 10 tools for the ultimate Windows user.

The RADEON 9600 is a funny beast. Technologically it is quite advanced, although it suffers from slightly limited memory bandwidth.

Data input is one of the biggest issues many people have with PDAs, and while stylus handwriting recognition and Graffiti dont take long to learn, they can be difficult to master, and cant compare to typing on a keyboard.

There is quite simply no holding nVidia back. Hot on the heels of the top-performance GeForce2 GTS chipset, with its capacity for up to 64Mb of fast DDR...

Even though the PowerColor R9800 PRO has the default core clock and memory speeds for the RADEON 9800 PRO, it ended up being the lowest scoring 9800 PRO reviewed.

Battery capacity has proven to be a serious barrier to true mobile computing. Tim Dean looks at how the technology is evolving.

Chance or coincidence? AMD releases the Athlon 64, specifically targeted at the consumer performance market, and only days later Intel announces a secret processor aimed squarely at the same MHz-hungry community: the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (P4EE).

For our second runner-up this month, we opted for a low-end card for those people looking for something affordable, but also with decent performance and features.

It was tough deciding an overall winner for this Labs. There can be no doubt - if you're looking for brute speed, then the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and RADEON 9800 PRO are the obvious choices, but we're not prepared to make a winner out of a graphics card that costs close to $1,000. For this reason, we've chosen the card we believe delivers the best balance of performance and price - which turns out to be the GeForce FX 5600.

Want to skip the Christmas crowds, or nab a once in a lifetime bargain? Online shopping could be the answer. Tim Dean looks at the glory and the pitfalls.

Each of the FX5600s in our round-up this month struggled to compete with the Labs Winner's results, options and price.

Another RADEON 9800 PRO-based card, the SmartVGA is designed for hardcore framerate gamers. In performance terms, the SmartVGA is only slightly, albeit consistently, behind the Hercules 9800 PRO.

At its very reasonable price, the Excalibur 9200 is ideal for anyone on a budget or in search of an upgrade.

The Asus GeForce FX 5900 features an interesting heat sink arrangement that effectively cools the core and RAM, adding to overclocking potential.