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While the memory front this week has thankfully calmed down giving me a bit of a chance to play catch up on the P55 test system the HD 5800s are beginning to roll in again thanks to companies who were hoping to have fancier versions before CNY but not quite making the deadline.

HIS sent over the HD 5870 Turbo which carries with it both an overclock and a fancier heatsink fan combination. It’s been in the testbed already and is looking pretty nice. Keep an eye out hopefully later this week or early the following week for a review.

MSI also sent over a HD 5870 but this one is the special Lightning version that looks Oh so Sweet! I have actually tested this card already but since this is really the cream of the crop when it comes to MSI products they working on new BIOSes all the time to improve the card; just tonight I got a new one which is suppose to increase the RAM overclock even more which means it’ll be going back into the testbed for some love.

MSI also figured that they may as well save on some postage cost and chose to send over the HD 5830 at the same time as the HD 5870. I’ve had a brief look at the card but I was waiting on the new Afterburner software that is suppose to give me the ability to adjust the voltage on this model. With that just coming in the last few hours it’s sliding its way into a PCI-E slot in the next 24 hours.

As for some content that you should be looking at; make sure you check out the Sapphire HD 5830 review here in where I Crossfired the two HD 5830s I had and if you’re looking for some new RAM that’s fast and stable check out the Hyper-X PC3-17600 4GB Kingston review here.

While news has been rampart this week and the HD 5830 finally came to see the light of day samples were pretty quiet with everyone seeming to ease back into work mode after Chinese New Year. Saying that though it doesn’t mean we didn’t see anything, on the RAM front I saw 1600MHz 6GB kit from Crucial that’s getting thrown into a pile of other RAM that really needs to be tested this week.

The VGA front was really quiet as most companies didn’t have a chance to send models out in time to arrive before Friday and with Monday being a public holiday here in Perth, Australia it’s going to be a short week. Fortunately I’ll still work and organise hopefully a good chunk of stuff to come in and get March ready to rock and roll.

Two VGA samples came in this week and both where HD 5830s, the first was the reference ATI one which was nothing but a pain in the ass to get a hold off. While the guys at AMD and there PR team did a good job of sending it a week before the NDA the courier company missed the plane out of one state, then forgot to pick it up from the depot in my state and then finally on the day it was too be delivered, 42c (108 f) heat found the courier driver dehydrated and not being able to deliver my card the day before the NDA. Instead at 5pm I find out the only way I can get the card today was to drive 30 mins to the place which closed in an hour. Good times! At least I got it and the review was done on time albeit I was still writing at 4am in the morning. You can check out the review here.

The other HD 5830 was from Sapphire and thanks to ATI not letting companies release samples before CNY and then it taking a few days for it to get it out after CNY the sample didn’t arrive before the NDA date. That card is in the testbed at the moment though for another very cool article.

That’s it though, a bit of a quiet week but a busy month with 15 reviews from myself alone at TweakTown. Bring on March which should see the GTX 400 series, ATI EyeFinity6 card, more incarnations of the HD 5800 series and probably some unexpected surprises.

If you had some time off over Chinese New Year I hope you had a good time and you’re ready to get back in to work Monday. As expected from a sample stand point this week it was a little quiet because of CNY.

Something a bit different from Gigabyte arrived early in the week in the form of the M8000 Xtreme Gaming mouse. This thing was pretty awesome actually, you should see a review show up on TweakTown over the next few days. I’ll link to it next week anyway in case you miss it.

As far as video cards went this week I didn’t see anything new which didn’t come as too much of a surprise. On the RAM front I saw a 4GB 2200MHz kit from A-DATA which is part of the Gaming series arrive but apart from that nothing else.

Hopefully since everyone comes back to work Monday samples should pick up again from next week with the HD 5830s showing up.

While not many samples arrived it was a busy week when it came to reviews, not only did the new Catalyst 10.2s arrive but the NDA lifted on the new 1-2 Punch features from ATI which is to do with the 10.2 and 10.3 driver set features. You can see that article here and a Performance Analysis of the 10.2s here.

I finally got around to looking at a Lite-On Blu-ray player which has been hanging around for a while and you can see that review here while a couple of HIS IceQ+ reviews went online with the HD 5670 being here and the HD 5750 here. Also I made mention of the PowerColor HD 5870 PCS+ going online last Friday, if you missed that one you can see it here.

While samples have slowed down a little this week; next week is still going to be a busy one with a few RAM kits to test and no doubt the HD 5830 as the NDA comes off on the 25th/26th depending where you are.

I have to admit that this week was busier than I thought, the big thing for video cards this week was if we would see any HD 5800 series card that moved away from the normal cooler. While we’ve heard from many companies since the beginning of the year that they had hoped to release a OC version of the HD 5870 or HD 5850, or one with a new cooler before Chinese New Year it seems that most weren’t able to hit the deadline.

Saying that; some companies did manage to get the cards ready, this week we saw a sample from PowerColor who we haven’t seen anything from in ages, they decided to reintroduce themselves in style with the HD 5870 PCS+ which will go online tonight at TweakTown.

The other company that was able to get a modified HD 5800 series card in time was Sapphire with the HD 5850 TOXIC; which is a model I’ve been waiting on for ages with the HD 5870 having already received the TOXIC treatment a bit back.

HIS seemed to want to get a few samples out before the CNY holiday, I received from them alone this week a HD 5450, HD 5570 and HD 5770. These cards will get tested over CNY which should be a fairly quiet week with no one else really getting samples out before the factories closed for the holidays.

The RAM side of things was pretty quiet this week with only a Kingston Hyper-X 2133MHz kit coming in. This gets thrown into a pile of a few other RAM kits that really need to be tested over the coming week.

At the moment I think only the HD 5830 will arrive next week but some other brands might have got something out before the factories and offices shut down.

As for reviews this week I would recommend checking out the Sapphire HD 5570 which is quite a mean little low profile card, while not for everyone it clearly has its market. The other really stand out product would be the HD 5770 HAWK that I mentioned last week, you can see that one here. The overclock on this model was insane; so if you’re looking at a HD 5770 I would highly recommend you check this one out.

What a week it’s been, we’ve heard heaps of little rumours about the HD 5830 and NVIDIA finally let us know what the name of its new series will be. With a couple of NDAs though this weeks samples have been fairly crazy.

Thursday saw the HD 5450 launch and I was ready with the Sapphire HD 5450 and ATI HD 5450 that arrived on Monday. MSI also let us know that the HD 5770 HAWK they sent was going to be under NDA till today so that came in early in the week and went straight to the testbed. This is an absolutely awesome version of the HD 5770, if you’re interested in this series I would highly recommend that you head on over to TweakTown and check out the review here.

Over the weekend the HD 5570 from Sapphire will hit the testbed in time for the NDA early next week, it’ll be interesting to see how this model sits between the HD 5450 and HD 5670. Gigabyte also sent over the new HD 5670 OC which will get a run sometime early next week.

On the RAM front Kingston sent over there new 24GB HyperX kit that was seen at CES last month, we’re still figuring out the best way to test this kit so we can see some advantages from the huge amount of memory on offer. If you’ve got any idea on benchmarks please feel free to leave a comment below.

Last but not least another high speed kit arrived, in this case it was a 4GB kit from G.Skill that is part of the PI Series. Coming in at 2300MHz DDR it’s not the fastest kit to date we’ve tested but it’ll be interesting to see how it performs.

Next week will be interesting, we’ve got a few companies that are hoping to get products ready before Chinese New Year, it will be either really busy or really quite. After that though it should be fairly full on with the HD 5830 launch and NVIDIA GTX 400 series launch in March.

For our Australian readers don’t forget about our competition here sponsored by PC Maniacs and iBuyPower Australia, and for everyone else don’t forget to check out the Global competition made possible by Corsair.

Everything is getting back into the swing of things with a few more samples arriving this week, we should have a couple of busy weeks before Chinese New Year which starts on the 13th of February and comes to a close on the 21st which means we’ll hit a bit of a dead spot. We won’t worry about that though, instead let’s have a look what I’ve received this week.

In the world of memory Corsair sent over another blistering fast kit of RAM with a default clock speed of 2400MHz DDR. Like the previous kit I looked at it really gave me a chance to find out just how much room was on offer from my ASROCK P55 TestBed. I really thought that getting too 2400MHz wouldn’t be an easy task but I was proved wrong. To check out the full review of the kit head on over to TweakTown.

The Video Card world was a little busier, MSI shipped over a HD 5670 1GB which uses their own cooler design. The review of this one has been done and will be posted on TweakTown sometime early next week.

HIS finally sent over some IceQ+ cards in the form of the HD 5670 and HD 5750. I say finally because lately we’ve seen iCooler and reference models from the company and it’s been ages since we’ve seen a model make use of the IceQ+ cooler. I’m actually benching these cards at the moment and you should see the reviews for these two cards show up some time later next week. Now all we really need is some Turbo models from the company and I’ll be really happy.

In my first *Knock Knock* Delivery! post I made mention that the reference HD 5670 from ATI had arrived, my plan was to CrossFire that but with the model not carrying CrossFire ports and being a 512MB model instead of a 1GB that plan quickly changed. Instead that card made for an interesting 512MB vs 1GB HD 5670 article and you can see that one here. I would highly recommend it if you’re looking at buying one of these lower end cards.

If you’re a bit bummed that the CrossFire article wasn’t done the good news is that I used the MSI which did carry CrossFire ports and 1GB of memory. As mentioned above that review should show up early next week.

Last week my HD 5670 overclocking also article went online, if you’re interested in that one you can see it here . For memory fans if you’re into overclocking, looking at a single Video Card setup and you’re tossing up between a P55 setup or an X58 one another article of mine comparing the performance of the two in mainly memory related areas but also some games might be useful to you.

Next week we’ll see some new models arrive along with an NDA being lifted on one.

I’ve said that there’s so much that I want to do with my blog, I don’t want it to be another blog which regurgitates information that’s already on the net or gives the opinion of someone who doesn’t really matter. I want to bring you information that’s fresh and perspective of people who are in the industry.

For that reasons I’m glad to announce ShaneBaxtor.com first Featured Blogger. The idea behind a Featured Blogger is that they’ll be able to bring something to the table that I can’t, and the reason they’re here is because they’re unable to manage a blog which needs daily updates due to their own business or work commitments, instead with some spare time here and there they can give us a fresh perspective once or twice a month or every week.

The first Featured Blogger is a good friend of mine; Rex, Owner of iBuyPower Australia and PC Maniacs who has worked with me a number of times on TweakTown.com in some of our most exciting articles like HD 4870 CrossFire X @ 4GHz when I was living in Melbourne, Australia will be able to offer something I can’t.

Being the Owner and Operator of two of Australia’s premier e-tailors and a computer enthusiast himself, Rex is going to bring a perspective of what it’s like owning and operating these two websites. He’ll cover everything from why he’s selling one brand over another, insight of what it’s like running these businesses and his thoughts on the latest products he’s using himself.

We hope to have what will be known as the Power Report become a weekly feature but our plan for featured bloggers is that they’ll do what they can when they can.

Aside from this we’ll be starting competitions from next week, the plan is to have two one will be a global competition open to everyone which will more than like have a different sponsor every time we run one. The second is one open to Australian Residents Only and sponsored by PC Maniacs, the first prize that’s going to be given away is a Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard. Details on how to enter will be posted soon.

For now though I want to welcome Rex to what will become a premier board of Featured Bloggers and look forward to seeing his first Power Report.

Just a quick update on the site, and *Knock Knock* Delivery, we’re now on a dedicated server and since the transfer of the site happened when I would do *Knock Knock* Delivery it hasn’t happened yet. I will work on it though over the next 24 hours so keep an eye out. I also hope that the new server feels speedy

Not only is this the week that I’ve chosen to get into the swing of things when it comes to my blog but it’s also the week samples have started to roll in again, aside from the Sapphire HD 5670 that came earlier in the month that was ready for the NDA launch.

Over the year I tend to hit a few slow spots when it comes to samples, it tends to be January, mid February due to Chinese New Year and mid year when Computex is on. So while my first edition of *Knock Knock* Delivery! isn’t as packed as I would like the good news is that companies seem ready to get samples off before CNY which means over the next few weeks the numbers should increase.

If you don’t know already my areas at TweakTown are Video Cards and RAM. Which means that’s what these pieces are going to be full off, saying that though I do venture out to other areas every once and while, at the end of it all though you’ll know what came in.

So let’s get started with what arrived!

Early this week a beautiful kit of PC3-18000 memory arrived from Corsair which was part of the new Dominator GTX series. With it being one of the first new samples to come in this year I was ready to go which meant the review happened really quickly. If you haven’t already seen it you can have a look at it here. I don’t want to give too much away but the performance of these modules above 2250MHz was surprising to say the least.

The only other item to arrive which came just in time before the weekend was the ATI reference HD 5670. From just about every angle it doesn’t sound all that exciting, with that said I’ll CrossFire this bad boy with my Sapphire one for some budget CF action. It will also be nice to have the performance of the reference cooler in the temperature and noise departments on hand, it’ll help give me and TweakTowns readers a better idea of how well cards that use different cooling perform in the future.

Well that’s the first edition of *Knock Knock* Delivery! I really look forward to the coming weeks though as samples begin to build up and more of my reviews start to go online as I get back into the swing of things for 2010.