Tech News October 2003

 

Maxtor 80GB IDE Ultra ATA133 8MB
SystemCooling :: Thursday, October 02, 2003

“Recently the hard drive industry has seen one of its most important innovations, Serial ATA (SATA). Although SATA is slowly becoming more excepted and affordable, most computer users are still waiting for this technology to mature, leaving them with choices between the many IDE hard drives currently available. Having said that, today we will be taking a look at a DiamondMax Plus-9, 80GB IDE Ultra ATA133 with 8MB cache hard drive from Maxtor. I believe that this hard drive, with its size and performance hits the sweet spot that most computer users are looking for.”

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DFI LanParty NForce II Ultra
The Tech Lounge :: Thursday, October 02, 2003

“You may remember our review of the DFI Lan Party KT400a with it’s unique looks and numerous accessories. If you frequent LAN parties or like to show off your rig, you might have considered this great board. Sadly, there was one disadvantage, the board overclocks a bit better than a poundcake with a processor jammed in it.. Thankfully, DFI produces a NForce II Ultra based motherboard in the Lan Party series, and if the board makes good use of the NForce II chipset, your overclocking worries may be over. So follow along my friends, as we venture into the mysterious world of… well… umm… motherboards. Yeah.”

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Trust 735s digital camera
Red & Blackness Mods :: Thursday, October 02, 2003

“We reviewed a Trust camera awhile back that gave alot of camera for a small amount of money. Today we are having a look at a even smaller camera. Will it be able to take good enough pictures even for the picky dude? Well let´s have a look and see what we got here tonite. ”

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Memory Bandwidth and Timing Article
OCAddiction :: Thursday, October 02, 2003

“How is memory addressed?” is another common question. This one is quite simple. Think of a matrix, a collection of rows and columns. Each cell containing a 1 or 0 is defined by a location that is the intersection of a specific row and column, within a certain “bank”. The older i845 Brookdale chipsets only had 4 banks, and could only address 2GB of memory. Newer Springdale and Canterwood chipsets are capable of addressing 8 banks, with a total of 4GB’s maximum of memory. How a bank is defined is mostly by the memory used. Most modules are “double sided”, or have two banks on them. So in a Brookdale, you could only have one double sided module and two single sided modules, one/two/three/four single sided modules, or two double sided ones. With an i865/i875 based chipset, the combinations are much larger, especially relating to the use of double sided modules”

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Vantec Nexus NXP-301 Fan and Light Controller
ViperLair :: Thursday, October 02, 2003

“On the far right we find the dial to control the Dual CCFL Inverter. This dial is smaller to help distinguish it from the other dials and has 3 basic positions (although it will rotate freely without ‘locking’ into a position’) which are from left to right – off, sound activated and on.”

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Steelpad 4S Professional Gaming Mousepad Review @ Tweaknews.net
Tweaknews :: Friday, October 03, 2003

“Today I will be reviewing my introduction into the high performance gaming mousing surfaces, the SteelPad 4S. Now as most people cruise the net for high performance gaming videocards and monitors to help them be their very best at gaming, sometimes the simple solution is overlooked. I myself prescribed to the thought train of “It’s only a Mousepad” or “This is not going to do much to help me..”. After the initial setup and testing, boy, was I wrong……”

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Samsung ML1750 Laser Printer Review @ GideonTech.com
GideonTech :: Friday, October 03, 2003
“In the previous laser printer model we reviewed from Samsung, the paper loading was top mounted, which we didn’t exactly liked. With the ML1750, the design has been changed and we now have full usage of a paper tray that holds 250 sheets. There is a small indicator on the right side of the tray that slowly drops as your paper level decreases.”

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XFX GeForceFX 5600 Ultra review
OCmodshop :: Monday, October 27, 2003
I have just posted a review of a XFX GeForceFX 5600 Ultra. This is a great video card so check out the review, I will also have some more posted soon.

Albatron K8X800 ProII Motherboard Review
PCStats :: Tuesday, October 21, 2003

“For a company just over a year old, Albatron has staked a name for itself under the leadership of CEO Jack Ko as a pioneer when it comes to adopting new technology. Since its inception, Albatron has produced a good many enthusiast-friendly motherboards, and so many users have been patiently waiting to see what Albatron has to offer before jumping into an Athlon64 motherboard of their own. Based around the very popular VIA K8T800/VT8237 chipsets, the bright blue Albatron K8X800 Pro II supports Socket 754 Athlon64 processors. The three DIMM slots can handle up to 3GB of DDR333 RAM, and 2 GB (or two 1GB sticks) of DDR400 RAM. In either case, both memory types run in a single channel memory configuration. In terms of onboard goodies the K8X800ProII motherboard boasts a 3Com Gigabit NIC, SATA, IEEE 1394, VIA’s 7.1 audio and dual BIOS’s for extra reliability. Upgrading is easy with the K8X800’s lone 8x AGP port and six PCI slots.”

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ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 9600PRO Videocard Review
Tweaknews :: Thursday, October 16, 2003

 

“ATI has successfully filled every possible sector with an All-in-Wonder option that is bound to please anyone with any wallet size. With great performance and a very good pricetag, the All-in-Wonder 9600pro is bound to be one of the most sought after stocking stuffers for the 2003 Christmas season.”

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Sapphire 9800Pro Atlantis 128mb DDR
DataFuse :: Tuesday, October 07, 2003

“Although the original 9800Pro codenamed R350 was introduced almost 6 months ago, it’s still one of the best graphics cards out there. ATI recently introduced a newer version named the 9800 XT, good reviews here and here (give me a shout if I forgot to put your website in it ;)) ”

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nVidia NV36 FX5700 Reference Videocard
PCStats :: Tuesday, October 07, 2003

“Amongst the masses of nVidia Geforce FX5900’s that everyone seemed to have on display there were a few closed door displays of nVidia’s next core, NV36. According to one unnamed marketing rep, the NV36 core weighs in at about 5000 3DMark03’s. The card should be making its way into the market in a month or so, hopefully before Comdex 2003 in November. While several companies took the time to show us their working NV36-A1 “P190″ reference videocards, none that we saw were anything other than units provided by Nvidia themselves. Memory speeds are expected to be as low as 3.9ns from the outset, and while we are a little unsure of the accuracy of this last point, cards may support up to 1GB or DDR-2. ”

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Samsung 172W LCD – Life at 16:9
TweakTown :: Saturday, October 04, 2003
“Widescreen is a new way of viewing life, at least your computer life. Widescreen or 16:9 started to become popular as Plasma displays entered the market. Today Shawn “Toxic” Baker, the man addicted to 16:9, takes a look at Samsung’s 172W LCD monitor. Interested in viewing life at 16:9? If so, read on and discover the benefits of the new dimensions.”

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XFX FX5600 Ultra @ Viper Lair
ViperLair :: Saturday, October 04, 2003
“For $200, you’re getting some excellent performance in many of todays games, though the Splinter Cell performance was severly lacking. The games of tomorrow? I can’t say for sure, but I consider a card of this caliber to be the bare minimum for Half-Life 2 when it arrives later this Fall.”

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Samsung SyncMaster 211MP TFT-LCD Monitor Review @ MODTHEBOX.COM
MODTHEBOX! :: Friday, October 03, 2003

“As previously mentioned, consumers have two options for attaching the included 5 watt speakers when setting up the SyncMaster 211MP. In order to conserve space, I opted to attach the speakers to the left and right hand sides of the monitor using the magnetized double sided screws. One point that should be made about a product of this nature is that you need to have the necessary free desk space required to accommodate the size of this monitor as evidenced when I placed it next to my gaming rig.”

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MSI i865 NEO2-FIS2R @ Viper Lair
ViperLair :: Friday, October 03, 2003
“What is so interesting about CSA, that makes it so different from using a standard PCI 32/64 gigabit card? Simply put CSA, or Communication Streaming Architecture is just like the Hub link between the 865PE and the ICH5. This means that the gigabit card doesn’t have to go through the PCI bus, which if used to its maximum, would saturate the PCI bus very quickly.”

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Altec Lansing VS4121 2.1 Speaker System Video Review #355:
3dgameman :: Friday, October 03, 2003

The Altec Lansing VS4121 2.1 Speaker System offers two slim stylish speakers and a subwoofer. The total power on this system is 31 watts but don’t let that fool you. They have very rich accurate loud sound whether they are connected to a gaming console, MP3/CD/DVD player, TV, etc. at a reasonable price. Watch the Video to find out more…” ~3dGameMan.com

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MSI GeForce FX5600 Ultra review @ Hexus.net
Hexus :: Friday, October 03, 2003
“Given a price of ~£160, this card will represent a good buy. MSI give you a nice bundle, VIVO, decent overclocking and good base performance for your money. IQ is a mid-range reality, games can finally look like they should.”

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