With the hectic schedule on going, I am saddened to tell you guys that there will be no Rig of the Month for May 2011. However, we will compensate this one with a much better issue for the upcoming June 2011 Rig of the Month. In anticipation for the upcoming release of the new AMD Llano Processor, this will also give us a good opportunity to explore the new CPU features. Thank you.

Over the past few weeks since the release of FSP's Aurum Series, there has been a good feedback around the Enthusiasts' community. The FSP Aurum Power Supplies offers solid high efficiency performance with a very affordable price tag. And its not just any ordinary efficiency, the Aurum power supplies were able to deliver 80plus Gold ratings which makes it stand out against its competitors. However, this amazing PSU series doesn't come without a flaw. The major disadvantage of its high efficiency performance comes at cable management. The previously released Aurum Series are non-modular and you have to clean up all the cables if you're going to install it in your rig. This is a minor cons if you looked at what the Aurum Series can give you.

Just recently to address this issue, FSP released their new Aurum Cable Management Series. These new models comes at 550w, 650w and 750w. The previous Aurum Series only comes at 400w, 500w, 600w and 700w...so be sure not to mistake the old ones with the newly released ones (and vice versa). The one distinct feature of the FSP Aurum Cable Management Series is that it comes with a modular feature, which was not present on the old series. Likewise, the new FSP Aurum, comes with the 80 Plus Gold Certifications, Active PFC, 120mm fan, four +12V rails and other standard protections against short circuit (SCP), over current (OCP), and over voltage (OVP).

The new Aurum Series would certainly address the issues of what enthusiasts pointed out in cable management. Although pricing on the new series has not been announced yet, I'm guessing this would only be limited to a slight increase once compared to previous series. No matter what the price would be, FSP would definitely try to fit this into the budget category (offering good performance for a very awesome price).

If you can remember a few weeks back, Nvidia released the GTX 560 Ti version. This time around Nvidia announced the launch of the normal GTX 560 version, which is another DirectX 11 based card.

The GTX 560 runs at 1GB of GDDR5 memory and graphic clocks internally at around 810 up to 950 MHz. Meanwhile, 336 CUDA processors are contained in this new card which are clocked at 1,620 up to 1,900 MHz. The memory interface width is stocked at 256-bit and memory bandwidth (GB/sec) is pegged at 128. Memory clock reaches at around 2,002 to 2,200 MHz.

Like most of the new cards, the Nvidia GTX 560 also supports new technologies such as 3D Vision, CUDA, PhysX and SLI (2-way). This brand new card is currently placed in between the GTX 460 and GTX 560 Ti, in terms of price introduced at USD 199. It may take time before such card reaches the Philippines. When it does, it will probably throw another hole in our enthusiasts' pockets.

With the release of the 2nd generation Intel icore processors, the road for AMD is certainly getting tougher and tougher each day. Until the planned Llano based AMD CPUs are released, Advanced Micro Devices will have to settle with leveling their competition with what they have currently and that is their AM3 socket products.

AMD unveiled their newest AM3 socket desktop processor, the Phenom II x4 980 Black Edition. It is based on a standard 4-core CPU with a clock speed of 3.7 GHz, 2MB of L2 cache. And it has a 6MB of L3 cache and has DDR2/DD3 integrated dual-channel controllers. Consequently, this black edition processor has a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 125W. Like all previously black edition CPUs, the Phenom II x4 980 has its clock multiplier unlocked. This gives the overclocker a lot of headroom through increasing their clock multiplier.

For now, the Phenom IIx4 980 Black Edition is based on 45-nm process and is currently introduced in the US market at USD 185. In a few weeks, this should reach our local markets.