If the EVGA nForce 790i board is a Shelby Cobra—a bristling big-block V8 with drum brakes and leaf springs—Asus’s Striker II Extreme is a high-tech, twin-turbo, all-wheel-steering Nissan Skyline GT-R R35. In other words, the Striker II Extreme is a spectacle of bells, whistles, and doohickeys. So much so that you actually won’t mind shelling out $450 for it. Read on to find what your dough'll getcha.

Gigabyte must have read our minds when we were thinking of our dream motherboard because the X48T-DQ6 has a feature we’ve been longing for: eight frigging USB ports! That’s just one of the things Gigabyte does right with this motherboard. Based on Intel’s DDR3, 1,600MHz FSB chipset, the X48T-DQ6 is a far better example of what a performance X48-based board should be than, well, Intel’s own implementation. It's fast and overclocker-friendly, with the safety net of an Intel chipset.

We thought only Western Digital was dipping drives into the Skittles
rainbow, but SimpleTech’s new line of USB drives are just as colorful
as their Western Digital counterparts. The devices in the Signature
Mini line range in capacity from 120GB to 320GB and come in seven
colors. We tested the 250GB Mini Kiwi, a 5,400rpm, 2.5-inch drive
that’s one of the fastest portable storage devices we’ve reviewed.