[H]ardNews 7th Edition

ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe:

If an upgrade to a socket 939 motherboard is in your near future, I highly suggest you give our ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe evaluation a once over before you plop down your hard earned money on a new motherboard.

The A8N32-SLI Deluxe is ASUS’ latest update to their popular A8N series of motherboards. The A8N32-SLI Deluxe supports all current socket 939 processors including the Athlon 64, Athlon FX, Athlon X2, and Sempron processors.

ATi All-In-Wonder X1900:

The Tech Report says that the ATi All-In-Wonder X1900 is an uber-powerful all around solution that might just be overkill for HTPC users. Is there such a thing? Head on over and check out the “attack of the killer octopus”.

The value proposition for the All-In-Wonder X1900 is quite good, all things considered. The card's performance in 3D graphics matches up well against NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX, and the GTX is currently selling at online retailers for about $489. At $499 list, the AIW X1900 looks like a steal by comparison.

VisionTek Radeon X1900XTX:

HDHardware has the VisionTek Radeon X1900XTX in house for a few rounds of benchmarks. The review is quick to point out that the card is currently the fastest thing you can buy but it is not without its drawbacks, mainly price and driver complaints. You can see our X1900 series evaluation here for comparison purposes.

We find it hard to swallow that the requirement for installing .net software just to run their drivers is a good thing. A driver that requires users to install additional software, adds to the overall driver package size (60MB at this point), is a step in the wrong direction.