What DDR2? With different capacities, clocks, timings, it is difficult to know what to go for! 60 GB shared between 15 kits are compared here so as to help you in your choice! > Product Survey: 15 4 GB DDR2 kits

	In the “I’ve got everything I need in my netbook” category, Asus has unveiled the Eee PC 1000HV-BLU007X on the italian VPC site. Like most of the competition, it has an Atom N280 processor at 1.66 GHz, 1 GB of DDR2, a 160 GB hard drive and a 10 inch screen. What marks it out? Its Radeon HD 3450 graphics chip with a 256 MB memory. It only has a 10 inch screen at 1024x600 pixels, so why this graphics set-up? Is Asus giving it extra boost for video? Well, no, because there is neither a DVI nor an HDMI port on the 1000HV, just a simple 15-pin VGA port... This Eee PC does nevertheless give 5 hour autonomy with a 6 cell battery. Good but is all this really worth 449 euros?.

	Several sites have reported the launch of the Radeon HD 4730 - a gap fill for the lack of HD 4770s. AMD has confirmed the launch and given us the details on the availability of its star card. It admits having had problems fullfulling the “enthusiastic” market demand for the HD 4770. In particular it cites technical problems with TSMC’s 40 nm fabrication process. AMD says that “initial demand” was satisfied but that supply is still not keeping up with it’s objectives. So as to fill the gap, ATI/AMD has created the Radeon HD 4730 which is simply an HD 4830 with GDDR5 memory and a 128 bit bus (instead of GDDR3 with a 256 bit bus). So instead of a card based on the RV740 and engraved at 40 nm we have an RV770LE engraved at 55 nm. VR-Zone has already presented a PowerColor version of the card for around $90. It still has to be tested to see how it does against the Radeon HD 4770. According to the rumours, the HD 4730 is clocked at 700 MHz (core) and 900 MHz (memory). The clocks for the HD 4770 are 750 and 800 MHz respectively, meaning the HD 4730 has less processing power but superior memory bandwidth.

	Gainward has unveiled a card based on the GeForce 9800 GT with the aim of competing with the Radeon HD 4770. We saw in our test that ATI’s rather cheap GPU outperformed the NVIDIA 9800 GT (see our article). To succeed in this, Gainward’s 9800 GT GS-GLH has 512 MB of GDDR3 at 0.8 ns (instead of the standard 1 ns) clocked at 1100 MHz (instead of 900 MHz). The core has also been clocked higher: 650 MHz instead of 600 MHz on the stock models. For cooling there is a nice double slot, quite common with Gainward, with an 80 mm fan. This won’t be enough to catch up with the HD 4770 but the gap should be significantly cut. Gainward has not given a price for the card yet, and this is what will determine whether it can compare favourably with the hard-to-find HD 4770.