Original Review Content by Contributor: James Pikover

When it comes to music game instruments, there is very little selection in terms of hardware. It’s essentially first party from Harmonix’s Rock Band 1 or 2, any version of the Guitar Hero guitars, and now the Guitar Hero World Tour drums and microphone. With the exception of a few things here and there, such as ION Audio’s Premium Drum Set and Pearl’s Omega Drum Pedal, there is no market for music gaming equipment.

For those of us who have spent too much time and money at game shops buying the latest software and hardware, you’ll recognize Madcatz as a name to stay away from except for very specific situations. In the past, they have been known as that 3rd party peripheral company who makes worse hardware than 1st parties, but with one or two features that made them sell well enough for some of us to buy. Features like a macro button or wireless connectivity (back when wireless wasn’t the standard).

After keeping quiet for a few years, Madcatz is making a comeback in a big way: making music equipment for the likes of Rock Band. They have introduced a very solid lineup of peripherals, and we had the chance to look at their three biggest ones: the Fender Precision Bass, standalone microphone and cymbal expansion kit. The results are surprising.

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IStarUSA is known to make great technology: from power supplies, to internal divisions and in this case, the latest Xage-n99-us hard drive docking station. Coming with the works of RoHS compliancy, the latest storage division supports up to 2.5” and 3.5” SATA hard drives up to 1TB, offering for a versatility that we just don’t see too often in terms of storage devices and the way the efficiency of items are brought up.

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Back when we did our review on the Crossfire 4870’s, we were left utterly impressed by the sheer amount of productivity and results that provided for an effulgence of gaming pleasure over even the latest of the Nvidia offering of the GTX 280’s and GTX 260’s with value of power and price. It seems AMD is setting the barriers this generation, and trying to cross them over and over again. With the introduction of the HD 4850 1GB and HD 4870 1GB, AMD had amped up the offering for the initial consumer price point models. Now, they’ve just broken their own barrier with the latest innovation of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 series. As the first consumer graphics card with 2 GB of memory, and the first card to implement a 512bit GDDR5 memory architecture through the inordinate amount of pixel pipelines, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card stoically dominates the competition in a whole new level for the enthusiast gamers.

We wanted to make something people can love, and feel secure with. – Dirk Meyer, President, AMD: Commenting to WhatIfGaming on the HD 4870 X2 card.

AMD is proudly bringing PC gamers 1.0 TeraFLOP Graphics Performance, with a single GPU that consumes only 110W of power in the HD 4850. Going head to head with the 8800GTX, 8800GTS & GT, and 9600GT series of cards. Developing a new TeraScale graphics engine, AMD is excited to deliver an impassive experience for gaming. With enhanced anti-aliasing 24X (AA) and AF, gamers will find a new realism more improved than previous versions of cards that all had AA and AF flickering sporadic problems. You’ve read our Cinema 2.0 coverage and are waiting for our detailed article on the latest 4800 series line, including ATI Radeon HD 4870 details. Now, we want to reveal one part with the ATI Radeon HD 4850 that should provide a glimpse into the new series line. With power that supports DX 10.1 fully unlike the GTX 200’s, the ATI Radeon HD 4850 brings efficiency together against the competition through features such as ATI Powerplay and ATI Avivo HD to give gamers a more enhanced experience all around.

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