Hardware 23 - Socket to 'em

This week, Clive, Harry, Paul and Antony discuss Folding@home, going through what it's all about and what hardware you should be using to generate the most points per day.

Also on the agenda are some of our thoughts about factory-overclocked graphics cards. We discuss where in the market these provide real value, and when you’d be better of trading up to a better GPU altogether.[break]

Harry also treats us all to a very long comprehensive run down of the current state of the SSD market, and what developments we can expect to see there over the next few months.

Finally, we take a look at AMD’s soon to be retired Phenom brand, and discuss what AMD got right and wrong with this chip-generation. We also take a look back at the conclusions we drew from our first experiences with Phenom-branded processors, and how our thoughts back then compare to our thoughts now.


As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, the lucky winner of which will walk away with a Speedlink Strike FX wireless gamepad. This gamepad is compatible with both the PC and PlayStation 3, and functions at distances of up to 10m.

As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.