Sorry it has been a while since I posted in here, I have just be swamped with work around here and the house for quite some time. 

Since the last work-related post I made here the following articles have been published: Asus N7800GTX TOP Video Card Review, NVIDIA GeForce 6100 GPU Motherboard Chipset PreviewATI CrossFire Review, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX Preview, ATI’s CrossFire: MIA, ATI R520: Radeon X1800, X1600 and X1300 Review, BFG 7800 GT OC Water Cooled Review and Asus N7800GT DUAL Review.  If you do that math, thats 8 graphics card releated articles to 0 other articles.  If I didn’t know better I’d think we turned into GPU Perpsective!  I am working on getting some other, non-GPU related materials going here so we can have a much better mix of component reviews.  I have Jon working on som X-Fi work and I have an Asus P5N32-SLI board that needs reviewing.  Unfortunately, most of the other work I have prepping is more GPU stuff: Avivo vs PureVideo, 6600 vs X1300 in HTPCs, gaming on a 1080P TV, HDR evaluation, etc.  Hopefully something else will be hitting us soon to aleviate the video testing!  🙂

Thinking on those reviews I posted above, there is no denying that ATI has had some ups and downs, even in the last two months.  Though CrossFire was released, it is just now becoming available, slowly and more exensive that it was claimed to be.  CrossFire motherboards are currently still MIA.  The R520 launch had low and high points as well: the X1800 XT performed great but even by ATI’s watch will be 30 days behind the schedule of the X1800 XL.  And we still don’t have an ETA on the CrossFire where-abouts for the X1800 series of cards. 

NVIDIA seems to be doing well with their current lineup though, especially with partners releasing innovative products like Asus’ N7800GT DUAL that puts two 7800 GT GPUs on a single card running in SLI mode.  It is by far the fastest performing single graphics card and the price might be low enough to interest a few hardcore enthusiasts.

I am just starting the process of building a new server for the PCPer Forums and it looks like I’ll be using  a Tyan dual Opteron bare bones kit that features the nForce Professional chipset on it.  I was hoping to get some dual-core Opterons from AMD for the work load but I doubt that is going to happen given our current status within their company, but I’ll just shell out the money for them if need be. 

Halloween is nearly here and Kelly and I are planning a Halloween/House warming party for our family and friends.  Should be good fun if I can get over the anxiety of having 60+ people in the house!  😉