There is somewhere new to chat in Hardware Land thanks to that Thomas Pabst. The good Doctor has forsaken the charms of a Delphi forum in favour of running the whole thing himself. Click here top read all about it and here to sign up.

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And if you want to try out your THG BB voice, where better to start than adding your views to Tom's head to head between Intel's 766MHz Celeron, launched today, against AMD's 800 Duron. You want the conclusion already? OK, here it is. "The Duron doesn't merely smack the Celeron here and there, but pounds it into the dust in almost every benchmark. What makes this massacre even uglier is that the 800MHz Duron is available for under $100, while the 766MHz Celeron has been announced to sell at $170 in lots of 1000."

So who should think about purchasing the 766MHz Celeron? In a few words, no one right now. Potential system buyers would find significantly greater performance at considerably lower prices by going with the 800MHz AMD Duron. Owners of Socket 370 motherboards wishing to upgrade to a faster Celeron would find a much better bargain in opting for Intel's 733MHz Celeron.

Oh dear.

Sharky also checks out the Celeron 766MHz, this time running it against a bunch of Athlona. Much prodding poking and benchmarking later, the fishy ones were ready to pronounce judgement on the slightly beefier offering from Chipzilla. Go here, and you'll see that even Sharky finds it hard to be positive about Intel's latest.

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Arstechnica is not taking this whole election business to seriously, I don't think. But then managing to combine politics and Quake. Not bad. Click here to get frag counting. Who would have thought that Al Gore and George Dubya could have made politics interesting. Even if it is only temporary.

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But, getting back to the point, Chicks Hardware has taken a peek at the Soltek SL-75KV2-X motherboard. Based on the KT133 and uses the new VIA 686B South Bridge. But is it any good? You know what you need to do to find out.

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And last but by no means least, another look at the A7V. Described as the most overclockable Duron/TBird board out there, it will probably still be being reviewed in fifty years time. So, to get in early on that sort of timescale, check it out here. ®

More stuff of silicon can be found in the archives, where it will sit, growing dusty and gathering cobwebs unless you read it. So check 'em out.