Tech News December 2002

by NewsDecember 31, 2002June 29, 201400

DFI NT72-SA i850E Motherboard Review
PCStats :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“With Intel dropping support for RDRAM and adopting dual channel DDR for the Pentium 4, it’s obvious that RDRAM will be soon be taking a less important role in the P4 mainboard markets. Still, Rambus is not going to go down without a fight, and today we’re examining the DFI NT72-SA. The DFI NT72-SA is based on the i850E chipset, which is Intel’s last to support RDRAM. The NT72-SA was originally released by DFI in May of 2002 and with the recent release of Granite Bay based motherboards now, it sits under the spotlight once again. The goal then, as it is now, was to produce a cost effective high performance desktop motherboard so there aren’t many overclocking options to fiddle with.”

Globalwin CAK4-76T Copper Heatsink Review
Frosty Tech :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“With a thermistor controlled fan that ranges in noise from about 37 dB – 45 dB, the Globalwin CAK4-76T is one of the quieter heatsinks out on the market, but also one which will scale its speed to meet the cooling requirements placed on it. As the thermistor senses an increase in the temperature of the body of the heatsink it will increase the fan speed to compensate. This technique has been used for quite some time on power supplies where it was effective at decreasing the overall sound output of a computer.”

Samsung SPL4225 Tantus 42 inch Plasma Display Review
PCStats :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002
“After watching countless DVD’s on good old televisions, tiny computer screens, high-resolution LCD displays, and even rear projection HDTV’s, I can say without a doubt; once you go plasma you never go back! Samsung’s Tantus SPL4225 Plasma display measures an impressive 42″ across, and a scant three and a half inches thick. The image quality is just luscious, and if you can forget about the nearly ten thousand dollar (CDN) price tag for a moment, there is virtually no downside to this display. This 42″ plasma display can be connected to a computer to act like a giant monitor for presentations, or heck even gaming. As part of our…ummm testing…we played a few rounds of UT2003 on the 42″ SPL4225.”

Laser Etched Fan Grills review
PimpedOutCases :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Looking for another alternative for dressing up your existing fans, or not looking to replace them anytime soon? Enhance there overall appeal and aesthetic by utilizing Xoxide Modifications Laser Etched Fan Grill covers. Seven highly detailed, laser etched acrylic grills will defiantly please any modder looking for a finishing touch for there rig.

CPL Winter C3 2002 Coverage
Virtual-Hideout :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“In my Xabre C3 Summer CPL Case Mod Competition article, I gave a small history of the C3 competition. If you missed it, be sure to run through it. This article will be focused on the event and competition. Unfortunately this time around there were much less competitors, however the few that were there were all amazing. I was among the spectators this time around along with many other long time competitors who couldn’t make it because various reasons. I couldn’t make it because of lack of funds, and time. This also marks the first CPL event I haven’t brought my computer to in 4 years years of perfect attendance (which totals 9 events). The fact that the majority of the event was during finals didn’t help. As last time, and pretty much all times before, it was held in downtown Dallas, Texas, blocks away from the Kennedy Assassination, in the Hyatt Regency Hotel.”

Abit Ti4200 OTES review
Nexus Hardware :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“The Geforce 4 Ti4200 has a great reputation of being a great overclocker, so Abit added some touch to it that will improve its overclockability even more. The Abit Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES video card I’m reviewing has 128MB of memory and supports the new AGP 8X. “OTES” stand for Outside Thermal Exhaust System. The unique OTES design is suppose to keep the GPU temperature low at stock and overclocked speeds. The GPU fan runs at an incredible speed of 7200 RPM! The video card comes overclocked to 275/550 MHz (This is the stock speeds of a Geforce 4 Ti4400) with 3.6ns ram while the regular clock speed of a GeForce 4 Ti4200 is 250/444 MHz with 4ns ram.”

BeanTech BT84 Acrylic Case Review
Virtual-Hideout :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“Acrylic cases are nothing new. As a matter of fact, they’re been around even before VH started out. Where case windows only let you see a certain portion of your valuable hardwares, acrylic cases are totally transparent so you can see everything inside. These cases also helps in educational and display purposes. There’re not many companies out there making them and most, if not all of them are based in the States or Canada but if the recent Comdex is any indication, be sure to see more and more variations of the acrylic case from the Taiwanese folks! And one of them is BeanTech International. BeanTech is a relatively new company, formed only recently but have grown into one of the leading manufacturers of mobile racks in Taiwan. They also manufacture their own line of aluminium cases and recently launched their acrylic case line. And the BT84 is one of the prototypes that we’re looking at today.”

Lost In Space LCD panel review
Ripnet-UK :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“…more problems raised their ugly heads – namely, it didn’t work! I knew that the LIS was receiving power, because the lights came on, but it seemed that despite this no-one was home; nothing was coming up on the LCD. Thus I deduced that it must be a problem with the serial port and not the USB, so I took the computer apart again, and first of all checked that the wire was pushed firmly into the L.I.S and tried a different serial port. Next step was to get online and have a browse about. What do you know? I found a latest software update here, and even better a pictorial installation guide. All of a sudden, Bingo! The LIS was up and running :-) …”

Swiftech H20-8500 Watercooling Kit review
OCIA :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“This kit is aimed at those who want the low noise operation of watercooling, but are confined to a somewhat small case and/or those who don’t want to fool with extensive modding of their case to accommodate a watercooling setup. The only requirement for your case is at least one 80mm rear exhaust fan opening and an empty 5 1/2″ drive bay. I will take a look at each component provided in detail, then will walk you through our installation and testing.”

Starfish Ray Lights review
IpKonfig :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something else gets handed to you. Let’s face it, we’ve seen most all possibilities there are to modifying a computer case–or have we? When the market was hot’n’heavy with all sorts of case gadgets, there was lots to choose from. But that market has slowed down quite a bit. Now, we’re seeing more creative devices appear, and the prices are quite reasonable. The biggest craze in all this madness was Neon Lighting. Most people had already installed a window onto their side panels, but not much was seen there until Neon lit up the hardware behind the sidewalls. Then came different colors of lights. Now, we have Cold Cathode lights-and even they come in multiple colors! The measurements of the Starfish Ray are 1.75″ x 1.75″ x .75″, and that should tell you that it can be placed almost anywhere. What I find most valuable about the Starfish Rays is their assortment of colors. Ranging from Blue, Green, Red, and White, you can find the color you’re looking for to suit your needs/wants.

Arkua 838T-7G 2U Pentium 4 Heatsink Review
Frosty Tech :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“The 838T-7G heatsink from Arkua has already made its way into more than a few Small Form Factor PC’s and desktops thanks to its small 2U stature, and easy clipping system. The heatsink makes use of the existing Pentium 4 heatsink retention mechanism and simply clips into place, with a small lever to then put the core under tension and finish off the installation. In those small book-sized systems and SFF PC’s space is at a premium, and so manufacturers have taken to using heat pipes, or hybrid heatsinks like this unit from Arkua which are shorter than a typical P4 heatsink. Even though the space may be small, the goals remain the same – good cooling with little noise. Although the Arkua 838T-7G is not specifically designed as a low-noise cooler, its 70mm fan is pretty easy on the ears.”

Xoxide Sunbeam 4 Port Rheobus review
XtReMoDs :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“Cooling is by far the most important thing that takes place inside your case. The primary method to cool your PC most people use are fans; without them it would be impossible to achieve such high processor speeds that we do today. But lets face it, if you have a high performance computer then chances are you have a bunch of fans. I know if your case is anything like mine then it is pretty loud. How can you fix this problem? One way is to install the Sunbeam Rheobus Easy Fan controller.”

Seagate ST380023AS Hard Drive review
Hexus :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Serial ATA is a “serial” architecture as opposed to today’s “parallel” ATA internal disc drive bus. Serial ATA wraps many bits of data into a packet and then at a higher speed (up to 50% higher) than parallel, transfers the packet of data down the wire to or from the host. Today Cyclic Redundancy Checking (CRC) is performed on the data being transmitted back and forth but not on the commands. Serial ATA integrates CRC on the command and data packet level for enhanced bus reliability. Cyclic redundancy code detects all single and double-bit errors and ensures detection of 99.998% of all possible errors.

10GB Apple iPod for Windows Review
PCReviewSpot :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“Probably one of the biggest highlights that strikes everyone about the iPod would have to be it’s awesome design. With a mirror finish stainless-steel chrome back to the smooth white acrylic front, everything about this mp3 player looks awesome. It has a big clear 2″ (diagonal) LCD display that can show up to 7 line of nicely sized text. It features a white back light which makes viewing easy in dim light, as well as enhances it’s aesthetics. A lot of Apples products look great, but they really hit the nail on the head with this one.”

Vantec’s IceberqDDR review
DataFuse :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“I can easily say the removal is just like taking off your taillights with a powerdrill, you don’t really want to damage your taillights but you sure as hell don’t want to scratch your porshe GT2, unowatumsayin.”

Thermaltake Volcano 9 HSF Review
myWORLD :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“Looking back at the previous year, we knew that Thermaltake was well-known for it’s series of ORB cooler. Back then, when the ORB cooler came out it had good feedbacks. Later, in order to cope with the changes, Thermaltake started to abandon their ORB series and came out with newer and improved cooler known as Volcano series….”

Akasa AK 824 HSF Cooler Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“The heatsink composition of the AK 824 is constructed entirely from aluminum and lacks any copper base or inlays commonly found on most 80mm coolers. The dimensions of the aluminum heatsink are 80mm x 80mm x 36mm. I was unable to obtain and information regarding the exact weight but from handling the cooler itself, the overall weight is rather light and should not pose a threat to the fragile cores of AMD processors. Using what appears to be traditional fin technology, the fins; totaling 21, all vary in height and rise towards the center. Having the highest point in the center of the heatsink accommodates for the core being directly below this portion, thus the need for tall fins and thicker base in that area particular to assist in heat dissipation.”

HighSpeed PC Xpider TM2000 Thermal Monitor Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“There are a total of 3 included thermal sensors used to obtain temperature readings from the Processor, Hard drive and overall internal system temperature. Each sensor comes clearly labeled to avoid confusion when installing. By using the provided thermal tape, users can install the sensors on whichever piece of hardware they see fit but must keep in mind that the LCD screen will still display the CPU, HDD, and SYS acronyms. In order to get accurate results, I attached the temperature probe labeled HDD to bottom center of a 20GB Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 45 drive.”

Plexmaster G1 Clear Computer Case Review
Voided Warranty :: Tuesday, December 31, 2002

“When I looked through the contents to make sure everything would be possible to install, I notice that two of the plastic 5 ¼” drive bay coverings were missing. When I installed my CD-ROM drive, I still had a big hole just waiting to take in dust, which is a problem.”

Kingwin Tri-Window Black Aluminum Case with UV Highlights review
OCIA :: Monday, December 23, 2002

“Like I said I want to make this case mine. Gold grills on black fans seems so passé and like I said I wanted to personalize the case so I put some neon blue UV sensitive fans with chrome grills in place of all five stock black fans. I found something interesting in the case; the front and rear pairs of fans have been spliced. I know that the splicing seems like no big deal but when one is building a case for viewing, less is more when it comes to wires to hide. Nice idea. I’ll add that to my bag of trickin’ tricks one day.”

Cooler Master Ramsinks & Alloy Front Bezel Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Monday, December 23, 2002

“Cooler Master has developed two specific types of RAM chip coolers, which consist of an all copper, and all aluminium based solution. Each package contains 8 ram chip coolers in total measuring approximately 22mm (W) x 8mm (L) x 5mm (H). The chip coolers have been designed to be universal and used in a wide variety of applications which include RAM cooling, GPU video card cooling as well as motherboard chipset cooling. Cooler Master has advised that these kits should meet all heat dissipation requirements for current and future RAM chips currently on the market. Consumers contemplating the use of these kits should measure their existing components prior to purchase.”

Nexus Multifunction Panel NXP-101 review
PimpRig :: Monday, December 23, 2002

“The three interchangeable panels that came with the unit were a nice touch, but the colors definitely leave something to be desired. I like where Vantec is headed with this trend though, and hope many other manufacturers begin to follow suit.”

AGP8x Leadtek Winfast A280 Review
Tech-PC :: Monday, December 23, 2002
“A closer look shows that this is a graphics card based around the well proven nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 core with 128MB of high speed DDR memory capable of up to 8gb/s bandwidth. As you can see from the features below, this is an advanced graphics card. AGP X8 and Leadtek’s quite superb’MyViVo’, make this card far more interesting than most Ti4200’s in the market place.”

Vantec Stealth 420 watt 3 fan P4 P/S Review
3dXtreme :: Monday, December 23, 2002
“Overall the Vantec Stealth 420 Watt Power Supply is a winner. Combining an Aluminum housing with 3 Fan switchable operation along with rock solid performance you cannot go wrong with this unit….”

Fujifilm FinePix F402 Digital Camera Review
PCStats :: Monday, December 23, 2002
“Fujifilm must have been looking towards style conscious consumers when they designed the F402 because it is endowed with more sex appeal than a digital camera really ought to have. If this aluminum camera and its’ little blue light don’t scream “James Bond spy toy” to you I don’t know what does… It goes without saying that this is a camera for regular folks – it is fully point and shoot ready, and small enough to fit into any pocket so it can be effortlessly carried around. To turn on the F402, you pull back on the little part of the metal circle shown to the left. The motor-driven lens pops out from behind the protective cover, and then it’s simply a matter of framing the shot through the LCD or optical viewfinders, and pressing the shutter release. Easy as pie.”

CaseAce Geargrip LCD Harness and LT Case Carrier review
Tweaknews :: Monday, December 23, 2002

“Enough already with the clumsy boxes and wheels. You need to carry a case? CaseAce it! If these two products don’t quite fit your needs they will always have something else. And they are always open for suggestions. I now look forward to going to a LAN-party instead of fearing the agony of carrying the case and monitor. Get it on the web!”

Pyramid 2 fan silencer review
Ripnet-UK :: Monday, December 23, 2002

“… I decided to use an Antec fan to test the Pyramid so I could still monitor the fan speeds through the motherboard. The first thing I noticed is just how much noise those Antec fans make! You may not think so but just with the one fan running slower the overall system noise dropped a noticable amount…”

PSU Relay Timer Mod Guide
Virtual-Hideout :: Monday, December 23, 2002

“Anyone with a water-cooling system has one major question that needs to be answered: How will I power my AC pump, when my computer uses DC power? The answer is rather simple, a relay. The people over at Swiftech have been nice enough to put together a kit with the previous question in mind. CrazyPC.com was kind enough to send me one such kit for this review, and I would like to take this time to thank them for this article’s sponsorship. While planning the installation out in my head, I realized that it would also be possible to incorporate a PCMods.com “Power Down Protector” (or “PDP” for short). The PDP is a kit, which is designed to keep two fans on for a specific amount of time after you shut down your computer. My goal for this project was to modify a power supply, so that it would automatically turn a 120w pump on when the computer is turned on, and so it would keep the pump on for a specific amount of time after the computer is shut down. Quite a long goal, but I hope it makes sense when you read it.”

Milling a Pentium 4 Processor?
IpKonfig :: Monday, December 23, 2002
“Scot from OverclockersHideout sent us an email today, something I wasn’t prepared to see, of a Pentium 4 1.8Ghz processor getting milled to remove the heatspreader. We’ve seen people use all sorts of tools to remove it, but this is just too extreme. I’m not sure I could recommend this to anyone, but it sure is fun to watch the mill carve right into the heatspreader. Check out the end results and a video of the actual milling.”

Antec Plusview1000AMG – SOHO File Server review
Monkey Review :: Monday, December 23, 2002

Performance is a major aspect of this towers appeal. Before utilizing the Plusview 1000AMG I had been using an aluminum tower. It was equipped well enough for airflow and had offered me sufficient temps, yet the location of fans, combined with the fact that I had to flip my PSU over to get it installed, made some major dents to my CPU temps. The PLUSVIEW 1000AMG proved that it deserves its place in the Antec’s Performance Series as my system temps dropped from the low 50’s to the mid 30’s.

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