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PureOverclock reviews the ECS GeForce GTS 250 1GB graphics card and writes in the conclusion:

As we saw during testing, the GTS 250 can handle just about every modern game out there with respectable framerates, and in most cases even to 1920 resolution without a resulting slideshow when playing, though several games will choke at that level with antiasliasing cranked up. The card does run cool at both idle and load, and the fan isn’t terribly loud, certainly not lke the hair driers on the ATI counterpart cards, so you can keep the fan running a bit faster and the temperatures lower if you like.

Without wanting to incite any Nvidia vs ATI flame wars, the fact of the matter is that the ECS GTS 250 offers a very compelling purchase option for the price range; it boasts some very nice horsepower under the hood, and runs cool and quiet under load. That combination is extremely appealing no matter how you slice it, regardless whether you prefer Nvidia or ATI. ECS has always been known for aggressive pricing, and quite simply, this card offers very considerable horsepower for the price, and is a great product for gamers on a budget that don’t want to sacrifice performance.

Read the full review of the ECS GeForce GTS 250 1GB graphics card at PureOC

ThinkComputers reviews the ASUS Maximus II Gene motherboard, which features Intel’s P45 chipset. This board gets a final rating of 10/10, here is an excerpt of the final thoughts:

The ASUS Maximus II Gene is a full-featured motherboard belying its small size. I feel that it would be a superb board for any application, definitely not the compromise that you normally would find in an mATX board. There are no compromises here, this is an Asus ROG motherboard in all respects. It utilizes the full capabilities of the P45 chipset, even providing CrossFireX support. Actually, I found myself forgetting that this is an mATX board during the testing.
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There is something here for everyone, but especially the overclocker and gamer. For the overclocker, besides having a BIOS with a full range of overclocking tweaks, the board itself proved to be an excellent overclocker, taking my E8400 to its highest overclock yet, and I didn’t even explore the limits. For the gamer, besides CrossFireX, the Maximus II Gene sports full-blown Creative X-Fi. No need to shell out extra cash for that SB card, it’s built right in. And don’t forget the high LANability of an mATX rig.

Read the full review of the ASUS Maximus II Gene P45 motherboard at ThinkComputers

Tweaktown reviews the Gigabyte HD 4770 graphics card and gives it the “Editor’s Choice Award” with an overall rating of 90%. Here’s a part of the final thoughts:

It’s good to see GIGABYTE has bumped the memory speed up, but what this does for overall performance we don’t know since it’s the first HD 4770 we’ve looked at. No doubt the memory increase will give us a small performance increase as well, which is always appreciated.

As for the bundle, it’s all very standard for a mid-range card. We’ve got everything we need to get up and running and it’s nice to see that GIGABYTE has chosen to include a DVI to HDMI connector. We also see that GIGABYTE has opted for a different cooler, but how this differs to the stock one we again don’t know since it’s the first HD 4770 we’ve looked at.

Read the full review of the Gigabyte HD 4770 graphics card at Tweaktown

Overclockersclub reviews the AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU, giving it the “OCC Gold Award”. Here is what the author writes in his conclusion:

Overall, the AMD Phenom II X4 955 is a step in the right direction. During the majority of the scientific tests – which measure the CPU generally more than the rest of the system components – the Phenom II 955 outperformed the previous top AMD processor, the Phenom II X4 940, as well as the Intel Q9450 in most of the tests. While still not as fast as the Intel Core i7 920 processor, the Phenom II X4 955 is a well put together CPU that allows fast computing using the latest components on the market. Supporting both DDR2 and DDR3 based platforms, the Phenom II 955 gives you the flexibility to upgrade at your pace while having cutting edge components. Even in the video benchmarks, the Phenom II 955 gave a few frames per second increase over the Phenom II 940, which can mean the world with the resolutions of current monitors and the crisp 3D graphics that we all crave.

Read the full review of the AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU at Overclockersclub

Hexus reviews the HIS Radeon 4770 graphics card and gives it a final rating of 81%. Here’s a part of the final thoughts:

If we had to use one word to summarise the Radeon HD 4770 512MB card it would be ’smart’. ATI’s engineers have looked at realising the maximum performance for a given die-size – important as it predicates the major part of the overall card cost – and chosen to implement a cutting-edge 40nm process allied to significant core and memory power.

Producing, potentially, nearly 1TFLOPS of performance and ramping up bandwidth with fast GDDR5 memory, Radeon HD 4770, coming in at $99 (£80-£85), makes a lot of sense. The performance numbers match a Radeon HD 4850’s, at mid-range settings at least, and it’s £25-£30 cheaper. We already know that HD 4850 is still an attractive proposition at the current price-point, but we’d take the HD 4770 512MB and put the extra cash elsewhere in the system. Got more money? Buy a couple for some CrossFire fun – yours for less money than a Radeon HD 4890.

Read the full review of the HIS Radeon 4770 at Hexus