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Hardware Add-Ons One of the season's most popular gifts is a hardware peripheral or add-on. These come in lots of different shapes and sizes, from 3D accelerators to the more familiar joysticks and wheels. This year, we have something for everyone, especially for those of you whose audio system needs a little jump. Canopus Spectra 2500 
This holiday season is shaping up to be the 3D-accelerated gamer's dream. More and more games are being released with 3D options. For those of you hoping to find a 3D board in your stocking this year, Canopus' latest offering might be what you're looking for. Currently nestled in GameSpot's Power Rig, this card edged out several others in our benchmark testing. Canopus eschews reference designs for something a little more oriented toward the hard-core gaming audience, so if you're a case-cracking gamer, put it on your list.
Read the review Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live 
If you've been waiting a long time for a PCI sound card from Creative Labs, your wait is over. The Sound Blaster Live uses the EMU10K1 chip for audio processing. The chip offloads the CPU for most audio and fully supports DirectSound 3D. In fact, Creative recently released a beta version of its driver that supports 32 simultaneous DirectSound3D audio streams. Overall, the Sound Blaster Live is a welcome addition to the PC audio world.
Read the review Toshiba SD-M1202 DVD ROM drive 
DVD drives have been substantially slower than the fastest CD-ROM drives, until now. The third-generation DVD drives are now shipping, and most sport up to 5x DVD performance and 32x CD-ROM performance. Toshiba's offering not only performed well in benchmark tests, it's stable and well-mannered as well. There's almost no reason not to move to DVD. Performance is nearly as fast as the fastest CD drives, it works well, and isn't terribly expensive. That's a tough combination to beat.
Read the review ACT Labs Force RS racing wheel 
This racing wheel is one of the best around - and it's also one of the cheapest. When you unpack it, you'll notice the cool leather-covered wheel (well, OK, it's probably imitation, but it's still pretty neat). The best part is that it connects to your computer via a little black box (literally), so, when the USB version comes out, you only pay roughly $25 and get a new black box that has a USB connection instead of a serial connection. If you've been hankering to try out force feedback in your Windows 95/98 driving games, take a good look at the Force RS.
Read the review Boston Acoustics BA-635 speakers 
Without a doubt, if you're looking for computer speakers, these are the babies you want to see sticking out of your stocking. The trick is not to be put off by the cheap $99 price tag. These speakers are as good as systems costing twice as much and even give the super-high-end Cambridge Soundworks Microworks a run for their money. The BA-635s sound clean and deliver an impressive sound pressure level for their size. If you pump it all the way up, you do begin to detect some strain, but what do you want for 99 bucks?
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