Hot on the heels of the top-end AMD chipset, the FX990, is a little Intel lovin' by way of Sapphire's brand new Pure Black X79N.

For the launch of its AMD Memory branded modules it has decided to cosy up to Patriot Memory for this dual 4GB stick kit.

Samsung is one of the largest manufacturers of NAND flash in the world, so you'd expect a great performance from a Samsung solid-state drive. And there's no doubt that this new model certainly delivers.

UPDATED If AMD's HD 7970 debut Southern Islands card arrived in a fancy tux heralding a bunch of world firsts, this HD 7750 turns up in a Burton polo shirt and trainers.

Updated We're putting our hopes on this AMD HD 7770 to deliver the best bits of the new AMD Southern Islands architecture for a more palatable price.

So, Intel has done the obvious thing and stuck a SandForce controller in its desktop SSDs. Could it offer the best compromise between price, performance and capacity?

It was almost inevitable that a SandForce-powered Intel drive would eventually appear. With the launch of the new Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB that day has finally come.

We looked at one of Plextor's first 6Gb/s rated drives last year (the PX-128M2S) and barely nine months later, the next generation is upon us in the shape of the M3 series.

Sapphire has waded in first with its take on AMD's latest HD 7000 series card, the Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OverClock edition.

UPDATED AMD is really putting the pressure on Nvidia now with its second release of the new AMD HD 7000 graphics card generation, the AMD Radeon HD 7950.

At around £26, the Samsung 16GB SDHC Plus Class 10 card may not be the cheapest currently available, but it justifies its premium by boasting a number of protective qualities in addition to high read and write speeds.

While its flagship FX processors are failing to shine it does seem a little on unfair on AMD that at the other end of the market it has a chip which really ought be cleaning up. Its Llano Fusion APUs, which combine a multi-core CPU and a Radeon graphics part on one die, are actually rather good.

Yes, the Zalman SSD-F1 Series 240GB is made by the same Zalman that makes all those fancy-looking CPU coolers, among other things. This actually isn't Zalman's first go at a solid state drive (SSD) range - it previously released the Zalman N series and the S series.

Intel, with even less of a fanfare than it made for the muted launch of the Sandy Bridge E platform, has now unleashed the quad-core iteration of its top-end chips, the Intel Core i7 3820. Finally a CPU that doesn't cost the same amount as some full PCs.

LaCie ramps up the performance stakes with a combined Thunderbolt and external SSD offering.

By combining a large solid-state memory cache with a regular hard drive, the Seagate Momentus XT offers a performance close to that of an SSD at a cost-per-GB that's more like a HDD.

Money isn't an issue if you're throwing together your own Intel X79-based system, so splurging an extra £100 on the highest-rated memory kits, such as the Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB shouldn't cause you too many problems.

On paper, the Patriot Viper Xtreme Division 4 appears to be excellent value. It has opted for a more average 1,600MHz bus speed, helping reduce latencies to the 8-9-8 timings; something it attempts to call 'low latency'. Though we'd prefer to call it 'perfectly normal latency' at this speed.

HIS has a reputation for employing unusual and efficient cooling solutions on its cards, and the HIS 6670 Fan 1GB GDDR5 is no exception.

The Core 3000 is the first in a new range of budget cases from the award-winning Swedish manufacturer, Fractal Design.

The Rampage IV Formula is the first of the Republic of Gamers boards we've seen tailored to Intel's X79 specs and we were hoping for something a little more impressive. Especially given that £300+ price tag.

The P9X79 Pro is packed with up-to-the-minute features, such as PCIe 3.0 support, USB 3.0 boost technology, SSD caching, Asus's new USB BIOS Flashback, an updated UEFI BIOS and eSATA 6Gbps. So you're getting an awful lot of board for the price tag.

AMD has blinked first and has opted to release its brand new graphics card architecture before Nvidia, and just before the new year. So here it is, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 and, for the time being, it's the fastest graphics card around.

A speedy drive that offers value for money if speed is more important that capacity

The A-Data Nobility Series N005 USB 3.0 flash drive is capable of holding a huge 32GB of data. Because it's a USB 3.0 device, when plugged into a compatible port it means transfer speeds are much zippier.