Intel plans to release no less than 13 Westmere-based 32nm processors under its Xeon E5000, L5000, X5000, and W3600 families towards the end of Q1 next year.

Six of these will be hexa-core Xeon CPUs which include the X5680 (3.33GHz / 130W TDP), X5670 (2.93GHz / 95W TDP), X5660 (2.80GHz / 95W TDP), X5650 (2.66GHz / 95W TDP), L5640 (2.26GHz / 60W TDP) and single-socket W3680 (3.33GHz / 130W TDP).

In the quad-core 32nm realm we have the Xeon X5677 (3.46 GHz, 130W), X5647 (3.06 GHz, 95W), E5640 (2.66 GHz, 80W), X5630 (2.53 GHz, 80W), X5620 (2.40 GHz, 80W), and L5630 (2.13 GHz, 40W), and L5609 (1.86 GHz, 40W). All of these processors have HyperThreading technology and Turbo Boost except for the L5609. The amount of cache is not confirmed on these quad-core variants as yet.

Intel's value positioned desktop chipset for LGA-1156, H55 Express is set for launch in Q1 2010 and a trio of H55 boards from GIGABYTE have been spotted online. These include the GA-H55M-S2H and GA-H55M-UD2H, both of which are mATX based, and also a full sized ATX board, the GA-H55-UD3H.

Where the GA-H55M-S2H has only two DDR3 DIMM slots, no eSATA or FireWire and the lack of Ultra Durable 3 (which includes all solid-state capacitors and a 2 oz copper PCB), the GA-H55M-UD2H has four DDR3 slots and makes welcome these other additional features.

Both of these mATX boards use a 7-phase CPU VRM, have two PCI-E x16 slots (with the lower electrically at x4), two legacy PCI, six SATA 3 Gbps ports (the sixth on the GA-H55M-UD2H is routed to an eSATA port on the rear I/O), and DVI / D-Sub / HDMI connections.

Memory card readers are a dime a dozen today and 99% of them are all the same. The things are almost exclusively USB readers and they tend to read the same formats. Users that read large CF or SDHC cards have probably wished the memory card readers were faster before.

Addonics has unveiled a pair of new memory card readers called the pocket eSATA/USB DigiDrive and the internal SATA/USB DigiDrive. The pocket version of the reader reads 15 memory card formats and connects via either USB or eSATA ports.

The internal version connects via SATA and slips into a 3.5-inch drive bay. Both of the readers can be had in versions that can read and write to the memory cards. Both of the memory card readers are also firmware updatable for support of new formats. The read only version of both readers are $59.99.

Seen below are a bunch of benchmark results showing off Fermi's performance vs. NVIDIA's current-gen GTX 295 and 285 graphics cards as well as ATI's HD 5870 and 5970 models.

Of course, given the lack of validity to these results along with the fact that the layout of the graphs scream out 'NVIDIA slide deck presentation', the results are to be taken with grains of salt.

Benchmarks are performed in Far Cry 2, Resident Evil 5 and STALKER: Clear Sky; you can see whether or not AA was used and at what resolution the tests were done with at the bottom portion of each graph.

As many of you know, Intel's crop of Core i5 and Core i7 processors has a new feature called Turbo Boost which can significantly increase the clockspeed of singular cores on the processor on-the-fly depending on what is being asked of the processor at a given time.

This is designed to function transparently and give the CPU a good kick in the pants when applications and games call upon extra grunt. But for users wanting to see exactly what mode the processor is in and when Turbo Boost is influencing performance, Intel has now made it possible to monitor this with a new gadget that can be installed into the Windows Gadget Gallery and be shown in the sidebar on Vista and Desktop on Windows 7.

The downside of the first version of this monitoring tool is that it's only able to display a single number which corrosponds to the fastest running core at the time, not individual clockspeeds across all the cores.

Reminising of the funny ole' DriveSpace' days way back where it would work supposed magic to double the capacity of your hard drive (only for many to find out soon after their data would crumble beyond any hope of retrieval), Western Digital has come up with a new form of increasing the amount of usable space on a hard disk which is said to be a lot more reliable.

WD calls it 'advanced format' which is a new partitioning method that gets rid of all the Sync/DAM headers and Ecc that each sector normally includes and instead makes use of larger 4k physical sectors, as depicted from the image shown below.

Whilst this method means the ECC ends up being larger, the overall increase in space is still enough to make this form of partitioning worthwhile with an increase in usable storage space of between 7 and 11% (certainly quite noticeable when you're talking 1+TB HDDs).

Foxconn makes all sorts of cool computer gear form video cards to computer cases. The company has announced a couple of new computer cases that use Bamboo in their construction for good looks and a green bent.

The cases include the Bamboo One and the Bamboo 2. The Bamboo One is a mid-tower chassis that has bamboo wood for a front cover rather than plastic. The bamboo looks really good and the only issue I see is that the bay covers don't match the grain and color of the surrounding wood.

Those wanting a smaller case can get the Bamboo II sized for HTPC use. This case has matching color and grain and looks really good too. Exactly how much the cases will cost is unknown as is whether these things will make it to America.

The notebook has pretty much taken over in many categories with the average home user and office drone preferring the smaller notebook to more bulky desktops. For some uses, the desktop is still popular through and among the most popular growing category of desktops are small form factor machines.

Dell has announced a couple new SFF machines for its OptiPlex line including the ultra small form factor 780 and the 380 available in three styles. The 780 claims to be the world's smallest fully functional desktop and has lots of options for graphics, storage, and uses Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Pricing for the OptiPlex 780 starts at $629.

The OptiPlex 380 is offered in minitower, SFF, and desktop versions and pricing starts at $329. Both models can use Vista, XP, Windows 7, or Linux operating systems.