So far reviews have been generally positive, with the consensus being that the 2.8GHz chip with 2MB of L3 cache isn't spectacular, but it can deliver enough performance to handle the latest games. Because it's a Black Edition, users are going to want to overclock this thing, and the Overclocker's Club concluded that while it can't stand up to triple and quad cores, it could beat the Athlon X2 7750 as well as the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 in several tests. The overclocking process was a bit tedious and they could only push it to x1.5 over stock, but overall it gives you a decent bang for your buck. If you are looking for additional opinions on the 7850, Engadget has rounded up several reviews. [AMD and Engadget]

If our best guess is correct, not only is the board built on a ceramic underplate, but all of those off-white structures on the board are "micro-porous ceramic" heat sinks as well. But not only do they dissipate heat from board components while looking ever so evil—the ceramic also improves the structure integrity of the board itself.

The only catch to performance clockers may be the inclusion of SO-DIMM slots—small form memory slots generally reserved for notebooks.

As of right now, the Marine Cool is a concept. But like their dual-screen laptop, if Asus actually brings this model to market, we'd all remember that the company is capable of creating a lot more than just netbooks. [Softpedia via Engadget]

Thermaltake claims the Xpressar gains an additional drop of 20° C below liquid-cooled systems that don't feature an actual fridge compressor. But, as you know, your AC and refrigerator tend to make a lot of noise and suck down a lot of power (Xpressar's compressor is rated at 50W), so you can assume that this is not the most practical of setups. And the crazy ductwork required means only certain ATX and mini-ATX motherboards are supported, but practicality's never really been first on overclockers' minds, right? [Hexus, Far East Gizmos]

The CPU apparently runs unruffled at speeds of 566MHz, a 30% speed-up. The memory is accessed at 233MHz versus the stock 166MHz, and also seems to run smoothly. Ubuntu even appears more responsive, so the overclocker claims, though significantly he "did not notice if battery life was noticeably affected." We suspect it will be.

But more importantly, we wonder is overclocking the passively-cooled little green machine a good idea? We're not sure: speeding the processor up is certainly going to generate a wad more heat. "Overclock at your own risk." You wouldn't want it to catch fire, would you? [OLPC News]

Inside you'll find a GeForce 8600M GT graphics card, a 1.3 megapixel camera and an HDMI port. No word on pricing yet, but it'll be worth it if it makes overclocking that simple. – Louis Ramirez

MSI Brings Turbo Back [DailyTech]

Well, if you want to be king geek of too-much-free-time mountain, the OCZ Flex XLC Water-Cooled RAM will get that memory nice and chilly for you, allowing you to overclock it and get what I can only imagine is a marginal boost in performance. But hey, ladies love overclocked computers, and you can't put a price on love. –Adam Frucci

Hot Hardware [via Oh Gizmo!]

Looky what they did with the more-expensive ($580) E6700 Core 2 Duo chip, cranking it up an extra 1GHz from 2.66GHz to a lofty 3.66GHz. Sure, some overclockers are able to exceed 4GHz with that same E6700 Core 2 Duo, but that's only possible when using exotic, expensive and impractical water cooling systems. Without using much more than a 120mm fan and an aftermarket heat sink to cool the over-revving chip, these guys were able to achieve a 33% speedup, calling its performance "astonishing." The tweakage involved is not for the faint of heart, though. See how they did it after the jump. – Charlie White

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6700 Overclocking [TechSpot]

There's plenty of room inside for drives and such, with a standard complement of drive bays, with five 5-inch bays and a 3.5" bay, along with seven 3.5" shadow bays. Of course, there are external connections for a couple of USB 2.0 ports as well as a FireWire port, too. Shipping next week in Japan for $130, we're hoping this radical-looking case might find its way across the big pond sometime soon. – Charlie White

Scythe XCLIO A380 ATX case [Newlaunches]

Nothing like some friendly co-opetition between Dell subsidiaries Alienware and XPS to keep the blood boiling, and the next shot inside of Michael Dell's bucket is the upcoming XPS 700. It'll feature an overclocked and hyper-cooled Core 2 Extreme CPU (affectionately known as Conroe), and will also offer the option of two NVidia GeForce 7900 GTX graphics cards strapped together in SLI mode.

At a meeting with the press, Dell Chairman Michael Dell lauded the upcoming processors from Intel, pointing out the various flavors which all receive a significant power boost by using Intel's Core architecture:

"Conroe is a great part. I think whether you look at Woodcrest, Conroe, Merom, that Core is a huge improvement in terms of performance and power from the prior generation, and we're very excited about what that's going to mean, all up and down the business in terms of the desktop market, mobile with Merom, [and the] Woodcrest servers that are already starting to go out. I think it's a real nice advancement."

Dell also hinted at a limited edition of the XPS 700, similar to the Renegade Edition of the XPS 600, a loaded-for-bear $10,000 PC that sold out in 36 hours. – Charlie White

Revised Dell XPS 700 to feature overclocked Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU [TG Daily]

Sure, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to chip speed, but if a processor can achieve these kinds of clock rates while consuming just a tiny bit of power and staying cool, then that elusive 4GHz barrier may be broken by this Core 2 Extreme processor before long.

Intel says a 3.2GHz Core 2 Extreme will be available by the end of the year, and then there are the quad-core desktop processors on the way, code-named Kentsfield, which will arrive in the first quarter of 2007. Can AMD keep up? – Charlie White

Intel Core 2 Extreme demonstrated with 3.5 GHz [TG Daily]

So if you're looking to do some serious overclockage, this kit has everything you need to cool off that PC, all the way down to a bottle of coolant. Best of all, the Water Cowboy keeps all the paraphernalia inside the case, where no one will be the wiser.

The first water cooling unit for PC built into power supply [Newlaunches]

100 MHz Nintendo DS [Kotaku]

There was some serious overclockage that had to be done to get that kind of speed. To keep things from frying, Asetek supplied its VapoChill LightSpeed CPU cooling system which keeps the temperature surrounding that CPU at a chilly -33 degrees Celsius, along with a WaterChill water cooling system keeping the graphics and motherboard chipset from melting.

Before all the overclocking, the builders started with a Intel P4 3.8GHz CPU, added Kingston HyperX RAM and a Western Digital Raptor X hard drive that its maker says is the fastest SATA drive on the planet. The workstation will be on display at Asetek s booth at CeBIT all this week.

One of the fastest PCs in the world on display at CeBIT 2006 [Thinkcomputers]