We first saw the use of the Lucid Hybrid chip on MSI's new Big Bang P55 based motherboard which is a ground breaking bit of tech that gives the ability to mix up your graphics cards from different makers (NvIDIA + ATI) and still be able to harness the power of them both in a bastardized SLI/Crossfire type fashion.

MSI once again decide to implement it on a board, this time one based on the AMD 870 + SB850 chipset for AM3 processors. MSI calls this board the MSI 870A-GD60 Hydra. While AMD 870 has no PCI-E external switching and only one PCI-E 2.0 x16 link, MSI connected this link to the Hydra chip which in turn gives two full-bandwidth 2.0 x16 links for some mix and matching goodness.

Other specs of the board include a 10-phase DrMOS VRM, four DDR3 slots for dual-channel operation, SATA 6Gbps support thanks to SB850 as well as NEC controlled USB 3.0 ports, FireWire, eSATA and 8 channel HD audio w/ S/PDIF connections.

Maingear makes a line of desktop and notebook computers that are typically aimed at gamers. The company is set to unveil a new multimedia notebook today called the mX-L 15. The notebook will use Intel Core i5 and i7 processors.

The machine will start at $999 and uses DDR3 RAM. Other features include ATI Radeon HD 4570 graphics, an optional 15.6-inch screen is LED backlit screen with 1600 x 900 resolution. WiFi is built in along with a 2MP webcam. The OS is Windows 7.

The keyboard has a full number pad, typically only found on larger notebooks. Storage options will include various SSDs and HDDs and a DVD burner will be built-in. The standard screen on the notebook is a 1366 x 768 LCD with CCFL backlighting.

Whilst entirely impractical on so many levels, Patriot went on a mission with a PC build to produce something they could sit on display during CeBIT and call it the "fastest system in the world".

That might be true as far as the storage sub-system goes, but the PC itself certainly doesn't appear to be anything unlike we've seen before. The system itself comprises a SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DTH-6F-O motherboard running dual Xeon W5590s along with 96GB of ECC DDR3-1333 memory.

But the real standout that Patriot claims to deliver the best performance in the world is the use of 40 256GB TorqX SSDs in conjunction with five LSI SAS PCI-E cards to produce a sustained rate of 155,000 IOPS/s.

Some images have surfaced on the web of a couple upcoming 890FX based boards from ASUS which go the full hog in features and power under its ROG series.

Dubbed the Crosshair IV Formula and Extreme, these two boards give the best ASUS has to offer in conjunction with the 890FX chipset; this including its own OC buttons, iROG and ROG Connect overclocking features and a specially designed cooling system to give better stability across the board.

Both boards also include four PCIe x16 slots for CrossfireX configs, six SATA 6Gbps ports thanks to the SB850 Southbridge (plus one or two SATA-II ports), Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1 audio.

I am a big fan of PC gaming and always look forward to new video cards hitting the market to give me better graphics when I play. A new video card has turned up at CeBIT from Sapphire and the card is a beast.

The Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5970 has 4GB of on-board memory of the GDDR5 flavor. It uses a Sapphire Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme cooler packed with three fans and four copper heat pipes. That massive cooler should keep the card running nice and cool.

The GPU clock is 850MHz and the memory clock is 4800MHz. The card needs a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors and has two DVI outputs. The card also has a pair of DisplayPort outputs too. Exactly how much the beast will cost is unknown, but it won't be cheap.

Sascha of netbooknews.de has managed to get some playtime with ASUS' upcoming Eee PC 1018P during a CeBIT conference and first impressions are real good, calling it "by far the most solid Eee PC I've ever, ever, ever had in my hands and the best keyboard I ever had on an Eee PC".

This is ASUS' first aluminum netbook and it sure looks sweet enough, coming in both silver and black aluminum attire.

The 1018P's internal specs include Intel's Atom newly released N470 CPU (1.83GHz), 2GB of RAM, a 250GB HDD and an option for 3G, whilst the 10-inch screen sticks with a 1024x600 resolution.

Our VGA guru Shane Baxtor has posted some hot news over at his Blog page pertaining to the new HD 5830 which is already a hot little number in AMD's HD 5000 series lineup with solid performance at a good price.

He learns that we might be seeing a bit of de ja vu, reminiscing of the X800 days where it was possible to unlock more stream processors by simply flashing the card with a different BIOS.

Whilst not confirmed nor said to be happening with every HD 5830 to hit the market, Shane hears that companies are looking to place the HD 5850 core on select HD 5830 cards which would then make it as simple as using a BIOS hack to unlock the extra stream processors the HD 5850 has on tap. Followed by a core and memory overclock from there and you're looking at sensational performance that makes the already attractive value factor of the stock HD 5830 glow even more.

Intel had planned for a big brother to Atom N450 to be launched come March 1st (today) in the form of the Atom N470, but decided to jump the gun on itself and make a brief announcement over the weekend introducing the faster Atom series processor for netbooks and nettops.

The Atom N470 heads north of the N450s clockspeed (1.66GHz) to 1.83GHz, whilst all other specifications remain the same; 45nm, single core with Hyperthreading, 512KB L2 cache, on-die single channel memory controller with support for DDR2-667MHz memory and Intel GMA 3150 integrated graphics.

Lenovo was quick to mention its IdeaPad S10-3t convertible tablet would use N470 in a previous announcement, whilst many more netbooks are expected to hit the market in the coming months with the new slightly quicker chip.

A David Smith of SolarisUtilityDVD has been made aware of a method to enable SLI on ASUS' Crossfire only P7P55D motherboard which might be of interest to those of you with the board who wish they could double up on their existing GeForce card.

As the P7P55D Deluxe board comes with SLI support (albeit at a fair bit higher price tag), it was as simple as getting into a hex editor, comparing the deluxe board's BIOS to the vanilla variant and copying the required string across to the current BIOS.

For the end user, the hack is as simple as updating your BIOS with one which has been modified to include the SLIC string that enables the support on the board.

The folks at Plaza.fi have obtained both a CAD drawing along with performance expectations of ASUS' suped up Republic of Gamers Ares graphics card which is basically a custom-designed HD 5970 which as many bells and whistles ASUS could jam into it.

This upcoming limited edition model uses two Radeon HD 5870 GPUs with 1600 stream processors each, whilst the core and memory clock remains the same as the HD 5870 at 850MHz / 1200MHz (up from the stock 725/1000MHz on a stock HD 5970). On the subject of memory, ASUS also doubled the memory with 4GB of it residing here.

As the CAD drawing above indicates, the card sticks with a single PCB whilst the cooling system is what mostly catches the eye; not too dissimilar to what NVIDIA uses for its current top-end dual GPU based GTX 295 with a centrally positioned fan which pushes air onto copper GPU blocks on both sides. This overall fan design looks pretty mean and chunky and is said to be quieter than AMD's reference HD 5970 cooler as well while no doubt being more effective.