The year that is about to end brought us numerous things that changed the hardware technology and our attitude to the ongoing hardware trends. We at X-bit labs were very busy during the year and decided to remind all of our readers the most significant technology introductions of the year, based on your interest in our articles.

Microprocessors

• AMD Raises the Bar: AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 and AMD Athlon 64 4000+ CPUs Review; Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46GHz and i925XE Express: 1066MHz Bus in Action! – Simply the best processors released in 2004.
• Massive Attack: Performance Tests of 14 Processors Priced at $200 – the most disputed processor of the year – Intel Prescott – in its first tests.
• AMD Athlon 64 3000+ and AMD Athlon 64 3200+ chips – two microprocessors that deserve the title of the best price/performance CPUs in 2005.
• AMD Sempron and Intel Celeron D – Value chips of the year 2004.
• Choosing a Budget CPU: 24 Value Processors from Intel and AMD in Our Lab.
• Choosing the Best CPU for Doom III.
• Choosing the Best CPU for Half-Life 2.

 Graphics Cards

• ATI RADEON X800 XT PE – the most anticipated VPU of the year in the gaming tests. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra – the most feature-rich GPU of the year in the gaming tests.
• The Fastest Graphics Cards of Summer 2004 - The whole range of graphics cards in the ultimate test.
• Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part II: NVIDIA vs. ATI.
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 XT FAQ: All You Need to Know About It – the most popular mainstream GPU of the year.
• Half-Life 2 Performance Preview: The Graphics Hardware Squeezer.
• Be Doomed: Performance Preview of the Doom III Game.
• Half the Way to the Half-Life 2: Counter Strike: Source Benchmarked.
• FarCry Performance Revisited: ATI Strikes Back with Shader Model 2.0b.
• FarCry 1.3: Crytek’s Last Play Brings HDR and 3Dc for the First Time.

Chipsets

•  Fastest Pentium 4 Platform: Performance of i925, i915, i875 and i865 with DDR2-533, DDR2-400, DDR533 and DDR400 SDRAM.
• LGA775: New CPUs and PCI Express Chipsets.

Memory 

• DDR2 vs. DDR: Revenge Gained.
• OCZ DDR Booster Review: Overclockers' Dream.

Storage 

• Mega Roundup: 20 Hard Disk Drives with 80GB Storage Capacity.
• Mega Roundup 2: Twenty Two Hard Disk Drives with 120GB Storage Capacity.
• Mega Roundup 3: Twenty One Hard Disk Drive with 160GB Storage Capacity.
• Mega Roundup 4: 16 Hard Disk Drives with 200GB+ Storage Capacity.

Multimedia 

• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro Sound Card: New Top Model Arrived!
• ZALMAN Theatre 6 (ZM-RS6F) Review: First 5.1 Headphones from the Cooler Maker.
• Extravagant Speaker Systems from Harman Multimedia: Creatures of Fantasy. 

LCD Displays 

• X-bit’s Guide: Contemporary LCD Monitor Parameters and Characteristics.
• Closer Look at 17” LCD Monitor Features. Part V.
• Closer Look at 17” LCD Monitor Features. Part IV.