Daily Reviews Summary 02/24/12

The Marvell based drives from 2011 were very good products, they just had a very big umbrella over their head. Pricing always plays a large role in the retail purchasing decision, especially in a slow moving economy. The Marvell controlled products are at a disadvantage when it comes to price out of the gate. The architecture calls for a DRAM cache buffer, an added expense, when compared to the SandForce design that runs an internal buffer in the controller. When you add the additional cost with the lower performance compared to many of the SF-2281 controlled drives, there just wasn't enough incentive for consumers to come home with a solid state drive using a Marvell controller.

The 2012 SSD season is now in full swing and unlike last year, SandForce doesn't have a new controller ready to follow their successes of the last two years. Furthermore, the Team SandForce partners are tip toeing into 2012, we've yet to see an established Team SandForce member show a drive with the latest generation flash coming from Samsung and Toshiba. SandForce is leaving a door open and in this competitive market others are rushing to get their foot in the door.

Two years ago, we reviewed the Huntkey Jumper 550, which exceeded our expectations. Now it is time to review the Jumper 600B, which comes with the 80 Plus Bronze certification. (Hence the letter "B" after the product wattage; it is important to understand that the 500 W and 550 W models from this family have the standard 80 Plus certification.) Let's see how the Jumper 600B fared on our tests.

AMD ended 2011 on a high note, unleashing the market's fastest graphics card (single-GPU) and beating its adversary to the next-generation GPU yet again.

Conveniently enough, AMD also offers a potentially valid alternative to its flagship with its Radeon HD 7950, which is essentially a lower-specced and lower-priced version of the HD 7970. The HD 7950 is set at $419 for the 1536MB version, while the full 3072MB variant is $449. Although it's currently possible to find a 3GB model for $449, you can expect to pay closer to $500.

Gigabyte has redesigned the PCB and included an upgraded cooler that is meant to lower temperatures and improve overclocking. Considering the HD 7970's respectable performance, we expect a solid showing from the HD 7950.