Tech News April 2005

Ulti-Mat Mouse Pad Review @ Tech-Mods.net
Tech-Mods.net :: Saturday, April 30, 2005

“Ulti-Mat was founded back in 2000 and has created a high quality mousing surface for beginners, enthusiast, and high end gamers. The Ulti-Mat unlike most soft and glossy mouse surfaces the Ulti-Mat is flat, smooth, and fast for accurate gaming performance or day to day use ”

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DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 Motherboard Review @ PimpRig
PimpRig :: Saturday, April 30, 2005
“Here are a couple of features that are targeted directly towards folks like us. If you are like me, my main rig is rarely completely put together and often runs on my Senfu bench outside the case. DFI included a power and reset switch directly on the board so tweakers don’t have to use their modded adapters to power up or reset the board.”

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NZXT Cases: Nemesis Elite Edition & Trinity Classic Video Review #562 @ 3dGameMan
3dgameman :: Saturday, April 30, 2005

“Both cases have a long list of features & bold styling, especially the Nemesis which has a radical front design. The Nemesis case is all aluminum, except for the front & therefore it is fairly light. Three 120mm fans make air circulation excellent, and it even comes with a flip-up LED at the top. The Trinity case is steel with great features & a classy look. Watch the Video to find out more…”

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Com-Pad Speed-Pad & maXXpad Review @ PC Modding Malaysia
PC Modding Malaysia :: Saturday, April 30, 2005

“The large surface of the pad is a plus as we see more and more company producing large mouse-pads and I have mention quite a number of times that this is surely the trend nowadays. The pad is quite the opposite if you compare it with the Speed-pad as this pad is designed for the low sensitivity users.”

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Dell Dimension XPS Gen-4 @ Hexus
Hexus :: Saturday, April 30, 2005
“Dell is both large enough and savvy enough to engineer and market the best gaming system around. This Dimension XPS Gen-4, however, is overpriced and, from a package’s point of view, hasn’t been specified too well. Dell, I feel, needs to reduce the price to below £1,500 inc. VAT and offer a choice between CRT and TFT at no extra cost. Custom touches, such as a gaming mouse and windowed panel wouldn’t go amiss, either. It’s surprising to say this, but Dell, with this XPS system, isn’t doing what it does best, that is, offering unbeatable value for money”

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A.C. Ryan Modding Products @ Bjorn3D
Bjorn3D :: Saturday, April 30, 2005
“We decided to put together this overview article instead of trying to review every little item separately.

The products we are looking at today are:

Connectx™ Kit Deluxe, UVRed – This kit includes all you need to mod all the connectors in your computer. Conductx™ DIY Kit Chain-Your-Drive™, UVblue FlexSleeve™ Kit UVblue – Sleeve up your cables. MORF™ psu modding kit, UVBlue – Everything you need to mod all the cables from your PSU. Roundcables ATA133 60cm UVSilver – Rounded ATA-cable with UV-Active particles. Backy™ Combo, UVBlue – Need access to molex and fan power outside the case? Then backy is the thing for you. SATA cable 50cm GREENEON – Tired of your boring SATA cable. Then this cool SATA cable is for you. A.C Ryan has a lot more mod-stuff, and I suggest you visit their site to check them all out.”

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ED#28 : Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier! @ Adrian’s Rojak Pot
Tech ARP :: Saturday, April 30, 2005

“Six months after the release of the print version of the BIOS Optimization Guide, the e-book version is now available! Come and take a look at the e-book version of the ultimate guide on BIOS optimization for PCs! ”

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AMD announces the END OF SOCKET 754 ATHLON 64 with deadline @ AMDboard
AMDboard :: Saturday, April 30, 2005
“AMD has officially informed European resellers about the end of socket 754 Athlon 64. According to the chart published today at AMDboard.com, orders will still be accepted until March 25 and June 15 for final deliveries before September 25. AMD also encouraged resellers to push socket 939 Athlon 64 instead, insisting on the larger bandwidth, lower consumption and dual-core compatibility of the latter. Finally, Athlon 64 in 2800+ and 3400+ flavor will not be replaced with socket 939 equivalent, while socket 754 Athlon 64 3700+ will be available in new Socket 939 version during second quarter of 2005”

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Jetart JACSH1 Universal VGA Cooler @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

Quote: “Jetart enters the GPU cooling competition and gives Arctic Cooling a good fight. Equipped with blue LED’s and universal installation, it becomes a great choice for enthusiasts.”

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HEXUS.review – SCAN 3XS ISOTOPE System
Hexus :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
Snip: The ISOTOPE chassis is much like Marmite; you will either love it or loathe it. I must confess, having first seen it on display at the recent CTS show, I was set against it. Too many hard edges and too much internal activity. However, it’s the kind of chassis that grows on you … it becomes a talking point as much as anything else, and if you’re the kind of enthusiast that likes to have something look a little different, the chassis, with its pre-distressed look and colour choice, is a real alternative to regular SFF PCs.

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DH Review: ATI Radeon X850 XTPE -AGP
Driver Heaven :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
For a while now the 6800 Ultra and X800 XTPE have been batting it out for the performance crown at the top of the AGP card market, until now neither ATI or Nvidia have released a product to move their AGP lines forward and due to this users of PCI Express have found their performance is slightly higher than those using AGP parts. With the development of Rialto, ATI?s PCI express to AGP conversion technology ATI began moving lower spec PCI Express products to AGP a few months ago. Today we have a look at their first move to convert a high end product?the highest infact, the X850 XTPE.

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Wintec AMP-X PC2-5400 1GB DC Kit @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

Quote: “Wintec introduces AMP-X as their enthusiast line of memory. Although new to the whole ballgame, the AMP-X DDR2 memory provides some tough competition for the bigger established boys.”

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Thermaltake SonicTower Heatpipe Cooler @ SystemCooling.com
SystemCooling :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

snip: “With today’s processors getting more powerful and running hotter and hotter, heatsink manufacturers are going to greater extremes to keep your CPU cool and still run at a respectable sound level. Today we are going to be taking a look at what has to be one of the largest heatsinks on the market, the Thermaltake Sonic Tower. Not only is this heat sink huge, it also runs fanless, making it totally silent.”

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Review: Actiontec Wireless 54Mbps Printer Server @ GideonTech.com
GideonTech :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
“With many households running multiple computers, sharing a printer may be hard when faced with all the networking needed to be done first. If you happen to have a wireless setup already, add this Actiontec printer server and you can get every computer connected to your printer in just a few minutes.”

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AMD to Adopt DDR500 Officially @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

“Up until today, DDR400 has been the official memory standard for majority of the platforms, but Intel made the change to DDR2, and now it’s AMD’s turn to make a change to their platform. According to an insider source, AMD has plans to adopt DDR500 as its official memory standard in the very near future.”

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Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Benchmark Utility @ Beyond3D
Beyond3D :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory has recently been released and it contains numerous different options for Shader 3.0 graphics boards and a benchmark mode. We’ve knocked together a short guide to the options available – giving examples of their IQ and performance differences as well as detailing our easily configurable benchmarking script that hopefully will be of use to reviewers and end users alike.

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Titan Vanessa S-Type @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
“Overall the Titan Vanessa S-Type is a great heat sink. Performance is on par with other similar heat sinks, and the noise wise it is very quiet. If you don’t have a Socket 462, mounting will be a breeze, and the included fan controller gives you that much more control of the performance.”

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Four Supermicro dual-core opteron motherboards
AMDboard :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
Lured by AMD’s Dual-Core potential, Supermicro just ended a long-lasting exclusive relationship with giant Intel in order to offer a complete Opteron lineup with blade, 1U, 2U, 3U, 4U, mid-tower chassis, and, best of all, a range of four dual-opteron motherboards. Three of the four Supermicro dual-Opteron motherboards have the AMD chipset 8111- 8131 duo while the fourth one rely on the new NVIDIA NFORCE Pro chipset to get the best out of 4 cores. All four dual-core Opteron-ready motherboards have features typically server market-oriented like onboard Ultra320 SCSI controller with RAID, onboard dual Gigabit LAN, PCI-X slots, on board ATI Rage XL controller and many more. AMDboard.com, the AMD specialist, is first to publish the complete specifications of all four boards at:

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News Flash – The Olympic Image: High Tech Beijing or Primitive Vancouver
Futurelooks :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
“While Beijing is trying to create the image of a tech savvy nation for their Summer Games in 2008, Vancouver’s Winter Olympics in 2010 is getting primitive. After unveiling a new logo tonight, I’m left wondering if it’s the right image or not.”

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New techPowerUp Review: Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 4 Rev. 2
techPowerUp! :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
Arctic Cooling released a new version of their successful ATI Silencer 4. The new revision fixes all previous problems, most notably the clicking fan noises. Cooling performance is excellent – this is the best cooler for the X800 we tested so far

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…and for our one German reader : überprüfen Sie es

Unhealthy Partnerships Plague the Graphic Industry @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

“If I were to buy a graphics card today, I would have little choice but to go with either ATI or NVIDIA. To break down my buying decision, I would probably consider the card’s features, the novel (and pointless in certain cases) concept of future proofing, price and performance in games that I want to play. Everything sounds so clear-cut, doesn’t it? I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but picking a graphics card is not an easy task these days. I can probably list a few reasons as to why my thinking runs that way, but chances are you are already aware of them. Therefore, I am going to focus this column on special relationships between the game developers and the graphics card makers.”

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Printing Troubleshooting Guide
The Tech Zone :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
You troubleshoot printing issues like you would any other computer/network related problem. You start at a general point and rule out the possibilities until you have the specific cause. The first question that you need to answer is: “Is the problem hardware, software, network or performance related?”

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New at techPowerUp: Memory Database
techPowerUp! :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
This database lists which memory chips are used on memory modules of which manufacturer. Also listed is information on suggested Voltages and timings for best performance.

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Zalman CNPS7700-Cu and VF700-ALCu Heatsink Reviews @ GruntvillE.com
GruntvillE :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

“The stock 9800XT cooler is not even in the ballpark! The VF700 just simply outclasses it. With the same clock settings the VF700 outscored the ATI cooling solution, I was able to clock higher with no artifacts long after they appeared with the ATI cooling. For testing temperatures I kept the clock speeds at a level the stock cooling could handle with no artifacts. The CPU was set at 250fsb during all video card tests. Since I could not vary the fan speed on the ATI based card I conducted all these tests with the VF700 operating at 12-volts.”

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Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 1GB DC Kit @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Thursday, April 21, 2005

” Corsair is not the only player with the flashy looks. Crucial’s Ballistix Tracer steps up with their “bling bling” memory to give enthusiasts great performance, overclockability, and of course, aethestics. ”

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DDR-2 Memory Investigation Guide – Making sense of memory settings
TweakTown :: Thursday, April 21, 2005
”

In our latest guide we investigate DDR-2 memory on the Intel Pentium 4 platform and the differences between high bandwidth and timings to figure out which offers the best system performance. What is better – higher clock speed or super tight timings? We discuss the reasons why one is better than the other and prove our claims through a range of different system configuration benchmarks

”

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Cooler Master Vortex TX Heatsink @ SystemCooling.com
SystemCooling :: Thursday, April 21, 2005

” Today we’re going to be looking at another new Cooler Master cooling product. It seems that Cooler Master has been keeping their engineers hard at work this year, coming out with some high quality innovative products. In my last review we looked at their new water cooling system, and in this one we’re going to see how their latest air cooling solution, the Vortex TX, compares in performance and noise levels. ”

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Coolermaster AQUAGATE R120 @ Neoseeker
Neoseeker :: Thursday, April 21, 2005
”

The Coolermaster AQUAGATE R120 performs quite admirably. At the highest fan speed setting, the AQUAGATE managed to cool the scorching hot Prescott down to 48 degrees Celsius (stock Intel HSF averaged 68 degrees). That is quite an impressive achievement, as the Prescott is not an easy beast to cool. Prime95 puts a very heavy load on a processor, and in most cases probably achieves close to the highest thermal output the processor is capable of.

”

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Intel Knew DDR2 was Poor Design @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Thursday, April 21, 2005

”

We all know how DDR2 is struggling to keep up with DDR, which in turn makes Intel struggle against AMD who has better performing microprocessors for the gaming and enthusiast crowd. Although Intel has managed to be “successful” with its latest generation of hardware in the OEM segment, thanks to Dell, majority of the enthusiasts tend to stay far away from Intel’s latest platform due to an unfortunate performance hit with newer standards and technologies. ”

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AMD May Skip DDR2 Altogether @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Thursday, April 21, 2005

” According to the source, AMD has other plans with DDR and the company will possibly make advancements in this sector. The source also said that AMD might be going its own way by not following Intel with their DDR2 implementations. Instead, the world’s second largest chipmaker may go straight to DDR3 or XDR in hopes of adopting a better architecture. You see, DDR2 was a poor design to begin with, but considering that Intel has been making quite a few mistakes after its Prescott and i915/i925 launch, no one should be surprised. ”

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Uneed DIGN HV5 HTPC case review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Thursday, April 21, 2005

” The very first PCs that began entering into households were based o­n the original desktop design. Not long after, this design was abandoned for the more practical and convenient tower design, which was better for space arrangement and heat dissipation. However, nowadays the ‘old’ format became popular for HTPC setups, as they require a desktop design which looks nice in order for them to harmonize a living room hi-fi setup. o­ne of the cases that excel in looking just perfect to complement a hi-fi arrangement is the Uneed DIGN HV5 HTPC Case. To the untrained eye, it will be mistaken for an oversized DVD player. Uneed is a company based in Seoul, South Korea. Being a very new company, they specialize in building o­nly HTPC cases and hardware ”

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Thermaltake SHARK aluminum tower case @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Thursday, April 21, 2005
” Thermaltake’s SHARK series is one of the most versatile Tower designs on the market today. The side panel features a “Honey-comb” viewing alternative which replaces the typical plexiglas window and allows further ventilation… ”

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Cooler Master Vortex TX Universal CPU Cooler
hardCOREware :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Lately we have been noticing a trend from the CPU cooler companies. While still offering the huge heatsinks that look like they could rip a motherboard right out of the case, they are starting to offer more and more ‘midrange’ coolers. These are intended to be a step up from the stock cooler that came with your CPU, but available at a modest price point.

There are some things a cooler must do right before it is worthy of consideration though. Today we’ll be looking at the Vortex TX from Cooler Master. This cooler will fit on virtually every CPU made recently, and is touted to be ‘silent’. We’ll have to see about that…

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Cooler Master Vortex TX @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
“Having gotten used to heatpipes for air cooling, I had some concerns of how the Vortex TX would compare against those coolers. Overall, the Vortex TX had a strong showing and managed to more or less tie the Hyper 48 but it couldn’t hold a candle against the Hyper 6. Keep in mind that the Hyper 6 is quite a bit bigger, and uses two fans at high settings for maximum performance.”

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Seagate USB 2.0 5GB Pocket Hard Drive @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Quote: “Why waste your time on skimpy small USB pen drives when you can have a massive 5GB on the go? Once you have the portable storage space, you won’t want to go anywhere without it.”

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Keeping Technology Simple Editorial @ The Tech Zone
The Tech Zone :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Being the total opposite to a technical person, it is hard to imagine future Internet software advances. The techno-humans have come up with incredible ideas and subsequently their ideas have come to fruition. It seems like anything a human puts their mind to can be done. Our species has come such a long way, but I feel the key to the next part in our evolution of technology and consciousness is to integrate the ideas of the average person. Who do we build all this technology for anyway? I think it’s made for humans to have a better life. It’s time to start making the technological advances in computing with the non-computer-based people of the world in mind.

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XTracPads HYBRID Mouse Pad Review Posted!
Tech ARP :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Quote – “The HYBRID is the latest culmination of XTracPads’ development efforts. As its name implies, it is a hybrid of two different surface materials integrated together for superior performance. Let’s see if this new method of creating a gaming pad works out!”

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Asus K8N Motherboard Review @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

“After taking a look at VIA’s K8T800 chipset last week and NVIDIA’s nForce3-150 chipset internally in our labs, it’s clear that both chipsets failed to offer AGP/PCI lock and lacked features that would impress the high-end home user. There were instances where certain manufacturers were able to implement AGP/PCI lock on certain motherboards, namely Abit, but majority of them did not bother to do so. The problem was a tough one to crack, since the chipset never had support for the aforementioned feature initially. NVIDIA’s nForce-150, on the other hand, supported an AGP/PCI lock, but due to manufacturer’s mistake, it wasn’t implemented on many boards either. According to NVIDIA, many board makers wrote the BIOS incorrectly, which disabled the feature. Whatever the reason may be the initial socket 754 chipsets weren’t for the high-end overclocker.”

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A news post on your site would be excellent. :)

Aqua Computer Premium watercooling kit review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

“Germany is arguably the country with the fastest and strongest growing water cooling products market on the planet. I do not know and can not possibly guess what caused this kind of growth, but it is most evident. I can think of at least 30 German water cooling product manufacturers in a single minute. One of the most reputable manufacturers in Germany for their quality and ease of use is Aqua Computer. Founded during the Spring of the year 2001, the company is dedicated to the research, assembly and manufacture of water cooling products. Their Aqua Premium kit is under the microscope today. Let us see what the Aqua Computer has to offer the hardware enthusiast.”

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HEXUS.review – Gigabyte’s GA-8AENXP-D Mainboard
Hexus :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Snip: If I have to say something bad about the board, it’s that the aesthetic makes me decidedly unwell. Go forth and seek, should high-performance, feature-packed, well-presented Pentium 4 be your Valhalla. Highly recommended.

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News – Antec NeoPower 480W PSU
Techniz.co.uk :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

“Antec is one of the most famous brands of producing the True Power PSU. The performance of this Antec NEOPOWER 480W PSU is very good and stable as you can refer back to the testing and performance section. Moreover, the PSU is comes with a sexy black color housing and it looks so great. A part from that, it comes with the advance cable management system where you only need to plug in the cable that you require to use.”

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PimpRig Review // Cooler Master CoolDrive Lite
PimpRig :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

“On removing the bottom, which is also the mounting plate and heat sink for the hard drive, you’ll find the housing containing the blower fan. Taking this apart reveals the tiny 44mm fan. The blower assembly does not direct air across the hard drive but rather across the fins of the heat sink.”

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Seasonic S12-430 430 Watt Power Supply
PCStats :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
“A good power supply is becoming more of an essential component for modern computer systems than it ever used to be. In this review, PCSTATS will be testing out Seasonic’s S12-430 power supply. This 430-Watt supply features Active Power Factor Correction, dual 12-volt outlets, ‘ silent focus’ fan control, honeycomb ventilation and a full three year warranty. It also comes with a nifty ‘DR. Cable’ cable management kit for a neater PC interior.”

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Modding : Project LP3 Player (work in Progress)
Tech-Mods.net :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Quote:” Well I had this linear tracking turntable for quite some time and figured it need an upgrade….I don’t play LP records any more so it was time to turn the tables on this bad boy of the day and get it up to present times.”

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News – Thermaltake Rocket Fanless Liquid Cooling System
Techniz.co.uk :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

“Thermaltake have come out with another fancy and good performance product. Personally, I very like the design of this Rocket Fanless Liquid Cooling System, with all the LED’s and UV reactive design. It will be great for case modding. As for the performance, it was very good compare to those stock cooler, you can refer to the cooling performance at the testing section. It was a totally fanless and noiseless water cooling kit. The Rocket is support the Intel P4 ( Socket 478 ), P4 LGA 775, AMD K8 and K7. The water pump was very powerful enough as well. Finally, this will be another great cooling kit for your system especially those enthusiast that looking for a fanless and noiseless setup.”

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X-ray Mouse Pads Review
Sharky Extreme :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

The Thunder 8 ships in its own tin carrying case. Inside there are molded foam pieces which fit the pad perfectly. This not only protects and prolongs the pristine condition of the pad, but also looks nice and will no doubt get attention at a LAN party. It gives the Thunder 8 an overall “gamer” feel and any company that sells performance mouse pads should consider at least some form of viable transportation. Several colors choices are also available: black, blue, green, orange, and yellow. The mouse pad remains black, but the trim is different.

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Contest: Tech-Mods.net Unique Dremel Contest… @ Tech-Mods.net
Tech-Mods.net :: Sunday, April 10, 2005

“OK People put your thinking caps on! Tech-Mods.net and Dremel have teamed up to give you a chance at winning one of Dremel’s XPR 400 Tool Kits ($79.00 USD Value) all that is needed is for you to come up with the most unique way you would use the New 400 Series XPR rotary tool while performing a computer mod of any kind.”

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Jon Peddie on Parallelism @ Hexus
Hexus :: Sunday, April 10, 2005
“The first and most successful examples of going out have been the parallel architectures of the graphics structures, sometimes called pipelines. Today’s GPUs are expressed in parallel structures of 16 pipelines each with multiple programmable floating-point processors and other specialized state machines. The results have been nothing short of phenomenal. Partially that’s due to the inherent nature of graphics, which in the most simplest terms can lead me to the parallel wash of millions of pixels exciting my rods and cones when I look at a display. But it goes much deeper than that and is found in the algorithmic construction of the physics of light that we try to mimic with our GPUs and high-speed silicon memory systems.”

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Corsair XMS2-6400 TwinX Memory Kit Overview @ Adrian’s Rojak Pot
Tech ARP :: Sunday, April 10, 2005

“The Corsair XMS2-6400 TwinX memory kit is the latest and fastest DDR2 memory kit at 800MHz!

Optimized for the NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition platform, this memory kit features two matched 512MB CM2X512A-6400 memory modules but is also available as a single module.”

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Corsair Pro Series XMS2-5400 DDR2 Memory Reiew @ Systemcooling
SystemCooling :: Sunday, April 10, 2005
“In the past, when we’ve reviewed DDR2 memory, we’ve found the results to be a mixed bag. In general, the memory is capable of running at very high clock speeds, but overall performance is hamstrung by the very high latencies that such clock speeds dictate. Today, we’re going to look at Corsair’s 1GB Twin2X XMS2-5400 Pro Series modules. This memory goes way beyond the standard DDR spec in terms of rated speed, and we’ll find out if this extra headroom is enough to overcome the latency issues inherent to the DDR2 specification.”

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PCI Express 101 Article @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Sunday, April 10, 2005
“For those who are looking for an upgrade to their system, PCIe (short for PCI Express) is a great technology to take advantage of. However, if you are looking to have the best possible graphics, there is no reason to splurge on a motherboard just with PCIe as AGP 4x and 8x should provide ample bandwidth for any intensive games you run, including Doom III / Half Life 2 and other soon-to-be released titles.”

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Thermaltake PurePower 350W Fanless Heatpipe Cooling Power Supply Review @ 3dGameMan
3dgameman :: Sunday, April 10, 2005
“This power supply is extremely different than most on the market because of its implementation of a very effective heatpipe cooling system. While no fans are required to keep it cool, great case air circulation is strongly recommended. This product offers quality efficient power in total silence. A perfect product for quiet PC buffs. Watch the Video to find out more…”

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A-Top Gladiator Case Review @ Overclocker Cafe’
Overclocker Café :: Saturday, April 09, 2005

“Here we get a better look at the main draw of the Gladiator case. Are these things wings or claws? I’m not sure but either way they’re pretty tough! Looking closer, we can distinguish that the window isn’t really a window at all, it’s a mesh screen. As we said before, circulation isn’t going to be an issue with this case. The down side is that the greater the air flow within a case the more often you are going to need to blow the dust out of it.”

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Hiyatek Notebook Cooler Review @ Tech-Mods.net
Tech-Mods.net :: Saturday, April 09, 2005

“Alpha & Omega Computers sent over their Notebook USB Cooling Pad with Temperature LCD Display made by Hiyatek to test out. This USB cooling pad houses 2 70mm speed controlled fans below an aluminum spacer plate”

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Jetart ThermoEye DT2000 Thermometer Overview Posted @ Adrian’s Rojak Pot
Tech ARP :: Saturday, April 09, 2005

“The key to maintaining a healthy PC system, especially an overclocked one, is to keep it in the ideal state. And this includes the operating temperature.

Jetart has one such product to monitor your system temperatures – the Jetart ThermoEye DT2000!”

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A.C.Ryan Connectx PSU Mod Kit Review @ Mikhailtech
Mikhailtech :: Saturday, April 09, 2005

“The first of the included tools is the 4-pin plug remover. This is pretty much the best thing ever. One end is for male connectors, one for female. To remove the wires from a connector, simply slide the Toolx into the hole and pull the cable out the other side. This way you can disconnect all the wires from a plug in a matter of seconds. Note that you should always keep track of which wire goes where (best way to do this is remove them one at a time and immediately put them back into the new connector), since even the two ground wires aren’t the same”

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A-Top Technology XPlode case review @ Xtreme Resources
Xtreme Resources :: Saturday, April 09, 2005

“Although there are many veterans in the computer case and component industry, not all know how to put a package together that satisfies today’s hardware enthusiast. Lucky for you, A-Top Technology has accomplished this task o­n several levels. Up for review is the XPlode mid-tower case by A-Top. Available in three different color options, this fully ventilated case looks as well as it functions. I had the pleasure to review the blue case with deluxe features.”

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SilverStone TJ05 *2005 Revision* @ OCIA.net
OCIA :: Friday, April 08, 2005

“Finally, someone listened to the cries of enthusiasts and got rid of the horrible rear stamped grill. A free-flowing design offers much better airflow and lower overall noise. The rest of the backside looks pretty standard, except for the button-switch near the middle-right side of the rear.”

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Neoseeker Thermaltake Armor Full Tower Case Review
Neoseeker :: Friday, April 08, 2005
Today at Neoseeker we take a look Thermaltake’s Armor, a full tower case for the true power users out there who are taking advantage of the 12 drives supported by some of the current high end motherboards. The full tower is a bit of a dying breed as the current trend is to go small and while the Armor is big, it is light and functional. Besides the massive number of drive bays, the design also accounts for those who want to watercool or run a fully passive system and should be of interest to enthusiasts.

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Alpha PAL8150 Heatsink Review @ Ninjalane
Ninjalane :: Friday, April 08, 2005
Feel free to sample a small quote from the article or use the one provided below Quote: Aircooling is the tried and true method for system cooling and for every one cooler you find you will find 20+ more that perform the same if not better than the first. The Alpha PAL8150 is certainly is one of the chosen few that can actually outperform many coolers on the market and thus keeps with the rich Alpha tradition.

Bjorn3D Review: HIS X850 XT IceQ II Dual DVI VIVO 256MB PCIe
Bjorn3D :: Friday, April 08, 2005
‘The HIS X850 XT IceQ II Dual DVI VIVO 256MB PCIe is yet another high-end ATI-powered card from HIS that costs a premium but delivers a lot of horsepower to your computer. ‘

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OCZ DDR2 PC2-4200 Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Ltd. Revision 2 Dual Channel Review @ AuphanOnline.com
AuphanOnline.com :: Friday, April 08, 2005

quote: “DDR2 memory has always been shunted due to its high price and high latency. Can OCZ’s latest DDR2 PC2-4200 turn the tide?”

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Thermaltake Kandalf @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Friday, April 08, 2005

Quote: “Today, InsaneTek has the honor of reviewing Thermaltake’s latest addition, the Thermaltake Kandalf Series. The Thermaltake Armor Series has already received considerable praise for its amazing features and versatility. The Kandalf series adds some extra features to the already acclaimed Armor series. We will be looking at the black version of this case, which utilizes a steel chassis. Thermaltake also has a silver version of this case that utilizes aluminum for lighter weight.”

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XG Extreme UV Mod box Kit review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Friday, April 08, 2005

“I would like to thank the great guys at XGBox, today as I bring to you the XG Extreme UV Mod Kit. XGBox is hard at work establishing themselves in high end computer cases and aggressively pursuing what every LAN gamer wants, that one custom case everyone wants to check out and copy off of to make their own. The XG Extreme mod kit has what you need to make your case just a little more special than the rest.”

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News Flash – Targus ChillHub Notebook USB 2.0 Cooling Pad Review
Futurelooks :: Friday, April 08, 2005
“Is your laptop overused? Does it overheat, slowdown or freeze? Are you running out of USB ports? If so the Targus ChillHup Notebook cooling pad may be the answer you have been looking for.”

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Powmax Demon 580W PSU review at SLCentral.com
SLCentral :: Friday, April 08, 2005

“Powmax is a company typically associated with lower end power supplies. But when I had seen that they had a 580W model with a “black chrome” finish and red LED’s for around $50, I had to check it out.”

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Titan Vanessa S-Type Heatpipe Cooler
SystemCooling :: Friday, April 08, 2005
snip: “Titan Computer Co. has been around since 1989 (first known as Sogic Computer Co.). Today they manufacture a wide array of CPU, VGA and system cooling devices. We were recently contacted by Titan and offered a review sample of their Vanessa S-type CPU cooler. So, without further ado, let’s see if design and performance can work together with this cooler.”

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News Submission: ATI TV Wonder Elite @ Bytesector
GideonTech :: Friday, April 08, 2005
“ATI has developed some great products in the past and broken some barriers, but I don’t think that much can come close to their latest multimedia package that they have dubbed, the TV Elite Wonder. The TV tuner card sports their latest Theatre 550 Pro video processor, 12-bit analog-to-digital conversion, an advanced motion-adaptive 3D comb filter, and PVR capabilities. It is needless to say that the card sounds wonderful. The package also comes with a third generation radio frequency remote control also known as ATI’s Remote Wonder Plus. A complete package designed with perfection in mind and I intend to find out if perfection is what it actually delivers.”

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News – Chaintech VNF4 Ultra ZENITH VE
Techniz.co.uk :: Friday, April 08, 2005

“The Chaintech VNF4-Ultra was featuring the new Nvidia nForce 4 Ultra chipset that delivers significant performance gains with variety of new generation architectures including dual-channel DDR, PCI-Express interface and Serial-ATA II interface for improving storage performance. The motherboard itself has a lot of built in features such as Gigabit LAN, RAID, and 7.1 channel sound.”

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Mikhailtech Basic System Buyer’s Guide – April 2005
Mikhailtech :: Friday, April 08, 2005

Thanks to dropping prices, this month we were able to give our video card a slight boost. We’re still recommending a Sapphire Radeon 9600 PRO, however this time around we were able to get the 256MB (vs. 128MB) version. The extra memory helps in certain cache-intensive, high content games (such as World of Warcraft). Having full DX9 and OpenGL 1.5 support as well as 400MHz core and 446MHz memory clocks allows this card to play all the latest titles at least on medium settings. We’re only a few dollars shy of a 9800SE (though it’s a toss up between getting the 128-bit or 256-bit version) or a vanilla GeForce 6600 (non-GT). Hopefully next month we’ll be able to make the switch.

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News Flash – The Tech Zone goes in search of the next “Killer App”.
The Tech Zone :: Friday, April 08, 2005
“One definition of a killer app is: A program that gives average people the capability to use technology to solve everyday problems and enrich their lives. E-mail was the first of these. Its usefulness has been demonstrated clearly by it being embraced across the entire spectrum of computer users. Another killer app, according to some people, was the Web browser.”

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Mass Confusion Rules the Graphics Market @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Friday, April 08, 2005

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough with the games ATI and NVIDIA are playing with their customers these days. Yes, I am referring to the abundance of X800 series, X850 series and 6800 series products that are “flooding” the market. I am sure you got a whiff of what I am trying to imply by placing the word flooding in quotes. I have discussed the lack of availability issues in my graphics card evaluations before, so I don’t think I have to go through that again. We all know the poor state of product availability and while it is improving, it’s still far from perfect. The ironic thing is that both companies will bring in new products this year and with availability already scarce with current generation of graphics adapters, it’s needless to say that ATI and NVIDIA will have a lot of catching up to do.”

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Backpacking With A PDA Posted!
Tech ARP :: Friday, April 08, 2005

Quote – “The importance of a PDA during a journey abroad cannot be denied. Many seasoned travelers swear by them.

Join Jason today in his journey to Beijing with his trusty Sony CLIE TH55 PDA. See how a PDA can save your trip from a disastrous end!”

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Sunbeam Samurai Mid Tower Case Review @ Tech-Mods.net
Tech-Mods.net :: Thursday, April 07, 2005

”

There have been a lot of different cases that have come out as of late, some of us like to personalize our computers to our persona. Pre-modded cases are on the rise; case manufacturers are taking control over the unable or unknowledged. For those that want a custom looking case of their own, and are not able to personalize it, there is hope. Today we are going to look at the New Samurai mid tower case from Sunbeam Tech.

”

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MGE XGbox Extreme Mod Kit @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Thursday, April 07, 2005

”

XGbox provides a nice set of simple mods in the Mod Kit for anyone looking to improve the appearance of their case. Though there is certainly more out there in the realm of modding, the Mod Kit provides a decent start.

”

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OCZ Modstream 520w PSU @ OCIA.net
OCIA :: Thursday, April 07, 2005

”

Heatshrink is used near the molex connectors instead of the sleeving continuing all the way to the connector. A previous PSU that I looked at ran the sleeving all the way to the molex, which made for some pretty stiff ends that were a little difficult to work with in some situations.

”

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Can RAID Systems Fail? @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Thursday, April 07, 2005
”

RAID undoubtedly offers more data protection than non-RAID disk systems. However, the management of the disks and the data distribution across them can be complex. Complex redundant systems can suffer failure, most often not a fault of the technology used or the design of the array, but most likely because of its failure to correctly apply these systems which leads to a single point of failure causing disastrous data loss.

”

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Centon Advanced Gemini PC2-4200LL 3-2-2-5 @ PCModdingMy
PC Modding Malaysia :: Thursday, April 07, 2005

”

When it comes to performance, Centon really impressed us all. Being a fairly new player in the enthusiast market, Centon has earned our respect. Although at the beginning I was a little sceptical about the appearance and outlooks of their Advanced DDR2 modules, it all backfired when the sheer performance showed in numbers. Although the heatspreaders were single sided, the price at USD$349 for the Centon modules is a little bit expensive when compared to the Corsair XMS2 Pro modules at USD$275. If you think that it is worth to spend a little bit more for a pair low latency DDR2 module, the Centon Advanced Gemini DDR2 PC2-4200LL should probably be your choice

”

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Xtrac Hybrid Gaming Mousepad Review @ Tweaknews.net
Tweaknews :: Thursday, April 07, 2005
”

XTrac aimed to give us a decent gaming mouse pad, and there is no doubt that they succeed in doing so. They have provided us with something that looks good, feels good, is easily packed and most importantly achieves what it’s meant to do, provide you with something that gets the most out of your optical mouse.

”

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Clean Case Contest 2005 @ MODTHEBOX.COM
MODTHEBOX! :: Thursday, April 07, 2005

”

This month’s contest is focused on testing your organization skills by demonstrating how clean you can make your case interior or computing environment. What exactly does this mean? In the modding community, there is so much emphasis placed on modding the external appearance of a case with little regard for the interior. We would like to see how creative and meticulous you can be at cleaning up the inside of your case or work environment and at the same time win some great prizes for your participation.

”

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PimpRig Project // Frozen$Solid$ :: The Road to the ORB Buster
PimpRig :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Not satisfied with his #13 worldwide score in 3DMark2001, PimpRig staff member $Solid$Necro has enlisted the help of the infamous cooling madman known as ZENNZZO. These two have a thread log currently running where they are trying to build an “ORB Buster” comprised of a CUSTOM TRIPLE PHASE CHANGE UNIT which will cool the CPU as well as the GPUs for two 6800 Ultras! Check out the madness!

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[ocnz-news] Nvidia SLI Performance Test
Overclockers New Zealand :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
“Is SLI worth the money? Yes, definitely, if you have a bottom-less pocket. The performance increase from going to SLI on 6600GT PCI-E is anywhere from 20% to 64%, depending on the resolution and benchmark/game.”

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HEXUS.review – Intel Dual Core Extreme Edition CPU
Hexus :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Snip: The 3.2GHz Pentium XE 840 is offered as an alternative to current single-core Extreme Edition CPUs. It may not quite have the pure gaming performance punch as, say, the 3.73GHz XE, but it’s a better proposition when considered over a wide variety of applications. Think of it this way. The worst-case performance scenario is that the £650 Pentium XE 840 performs much like a single-core 3.2GHz 640 model. The best-case scenario, that is, being run with apps. that take advantage of its 4-thread parallel processing ability, is performance that no single-core Pentium 4 could ever hope to match, even under the most esoteric cooling.

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Ultra X-Connect 500W Titanium PSU review at SLCentral.com
SLCentral :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
“Ultra’s been around for a long time. Starting out as the white box division for Midwest Micro, Ultra is now largly an enthusiast component company, manufacturing all sorts of niche components with that little tweak to it that makes them unique. Ultra sells everything from rechargable MP3 players with built-in email clients to DDR memory with heat spreaders in mahogany boxes. But their most popular items are no doubt their power supplies.”

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VIA Epia SP-13000 review @ Epiacenter.com
Epiacenter.com :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005

“The EPIA-SP 13000 is an important update to the VIA EPIA range improving the 3D graphics performance of the system – However, despite the boards shortfalls, this is the best VIA EPIA system yet – highly capable as an office machine, or entertainment platform, even capable of the odd game or two.”

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Sharkoon Silvation Case Review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005

“Cases, cases and more cases are released out o­n the market monthly. Every color and shape for every given taste at your disposal. But most of them are still the same case inside, nothing innovative and with very little difference. There is o­ne company that released a single case which is trying to make a distinction from the rest while not being very expensive or drastically different o­n the outside. Sharkoon is the company and the Silvation Basic is the case. From the outside, it just looks like an ordinary, large, nicely built steel case with elegant looks. But the whole fuss about this case is the interior. Let us open the shipping box and see what is inside.”

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EPoX EP-5LWA+ 925XE @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
“EPoX put together a very nice motherboard based on the 925XE chipset. While you need to own the incredibly expensive 1066FSB Extreme Edition CPUs to get the most out of it, we see little reason to pickup a 925X based board even if you have an 800FSB CPU. The extra headroom should allow better overclocking as the chipset is validated at the higher speeds, and there isn’t much of a price premium between 925X and 925XE boards.”

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Intel Dual Core: Pentium EE 840 Arrives @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Today, for the very first time, Intel is letting the media show off the Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840. Legit Reviews has the pleasure of being among the first to use the Intel 955X Express chipset, the I/O Controller Hub (ICH7/R), and the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processor.

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Linux vs. Linux: The Battle for the Desktop @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005

“So, you have mastered every aspect of computing (or maybe not), and you are bored with the Internet. What can you do to bring back the thrill that you had the first time you fired up the latest Windows operating system? How about downloading or purchasing Linux? Linux is an “open-source” operating system that is in the “public domain”, meaning that it must be offered free and no company or individual can claim it. Even for the most literate users, experimentation into new areas of computing can be a fun and an interesting challenge; therefore, trying out one of the latest Linux distributions is an excellent way to venture into the world of Unix based operating systems.”

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1GHz DDR2 Memory Barrier Broken @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
By using the just released Corsair XMS PC-5400UL modules Legit Reviews has managed to surpass the 1000MHz memory barrier by a hair. This was done by running at 500.3MHz or 1000.6MHz DDR2 at loose 5-5-5-15 timings. Did we mention that this was also done on the new Intel Dual Core CPU?

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NZXT Trinity Full Tower Case
hardCOREware :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
With the basic version carrying an MSRP of just around $70, the Trinity won’t have to go to extremes to impress us. It has to look good though, and if you take a look you’ll agree that they’ve at least succeeded in that. However, we found that this entry-level case from NZXT doesn’t exactly live up to their own standard they set so high with their previous two cases.

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Intel Matrix RAID Guide Posted!
Tech ARP :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Quote – “RAID 0 offers better performance but no data redundancy. And it’s the opposite for RAID 1. We all want the best of both worlds but often, that isn’t possible.

But when it comes to RAID, it might just be possible with Intel’s Matrix RAID technology! Let’s see what’s so great about the Intel Matrix RAID and if it really works! ”

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A-Top XPlode Case Review @ Overclocker Cafe’
Overclocker Café :: Saturday, April 02, 2005

“The A-Top XPlode is offered in three basic color schemes of red, white and blue. Our blue review unit’s paint job was first rate. A-Top’s website states the case comes with a “car paint finish.” I can tell you from first hand experience, they mean that. Another very interesting thing about the XPlode’s color offerings is that A-Top can take custom orders for a case to be colored to suit your mood or fancy.”

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SilverStone ZEUS ST65ZF SLI PSU Shootout @ PCModdingMy
PC Modding Malaysia :: Saturday, April 02, 2005

“Up to date, NVIDIA has given out “SLI Ready” certification to only two power supply manufacturers mainly PC Power & Cooling and SilverStone. We all know that SilverStone makes amazingly high quality PC cases but little did we know, they also manufacture some superb power supplies. Dubbed as ZEUS, the SilverStone ST65ZF power supply is one out of the three power supplies to receive the SLI certification from NVIDIA…”

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April Extreme Gaming PC Buyer’s Guide @ Sharky Extreme
Sharky Extreme :: Saturday, April 02, 2005
“Today on Sharky Extreme, we’ve posted our April Extreme Gaming PC Buyer’s Guide, where we take a whopping $4K and see what kind of AMD and Intel system configurations we can assemble”

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First look – AMD Graphics Processor @ Hexus
Hexus :: Saturday, April 02, 2005
“But suddenly, out of nowhere, AMD have delivered a hammer blow to ATI, NVIDIA and Intel with a stunning new GPU that is set to light up the accelerator scene in a fashion not seen since 3Dfx brought out the Voodoo.”

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Intel Pentium 4 3.73GHz Extreme Edition @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Saturday, April 02, 2005
“As we’ve seen in our results, the gap between AMD and Intel in terms of application performance is a lot closer than it used to be, at least when we’re talking about $1000 processors. The 3.73GHz Extreme Edition did edge the Athlon FX-55 in most of the application tests (and trumped it in video encoding), but the race is getting tighter here. While the FX-55 did win all the gaming benchmarks, we saw that the larger cache and 1066FSB narrowed the results for Intel, but not enough to overtake AMD.”

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Revoltec Lightboard Compact, Lightmouse and Lightpad review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Saturday, April 02, 2005

“There are many input devices out on the market. Thousands of keyboards and mice are available for every user to choose from. But some people just want something different, a good input setup from a known, old manufacturer simply will not do anymore. It is just too common and some people do not like common. So the available items to choose from is narrowed down real fast. Revoltec comes to offer some different products for the top of your desk, so let us see if different is good as well. They are a keyboard (the Lightboard compact), a mouse (the Lightmouse precision) and a gamer’s mouse pad (the Lightpad Precision).”

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Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9 Review @ Neoseeker
Neoseeker :: Saturday, April 02, 2005
“Upgrading to PCI Express is not cheap. For many it means an upgrade to Socket 939, a new video card and a new motherboard. Today at Neoseeker we take a look at a budget PCIe board based on VIA’s K8T890 in Gigabyte’s GA-K8VT890-9. With a MSRP of only 82$ and performance that is comparable to even high end nForce 4 boards, this could be a good choice for a budget entry level Athlon 64 PCIe system for those who are not conscientious about features or overclocking.”

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Enabling Temperature Monitoring on the Nvidia 6600 GT @ OCIA
OCIA :: Saturday, April 02, 2005

“Recently, I reviewed the Apollo nVidia 6600GT. During the research for that review, I found out that the chipset on all 6600GT’s has an onboard temperature sensor, but many card manufacturers opted not to enable temp monitoring on their particular cards. I would assume to discourage overclocking, but I’m just guessing”

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Swiftech MCX478-V Heatsink Review @ Mikhailtech
Mikhailtech :: Saturday, April 02, 2005

“There are a total of 374 pins aluminum alloy pins inserted into a half-inch thick CNC machined C110 copper bottom. Base dimensions measure 3″ x 3″ x 1.66″. You’ll notice this is very close to the inner dimensions of the stock P4 bracket. In other words, the cooler fits perfectly into the bracket and because it’s almost the same size, it doesn’t wiggle around. This eliminates improper/uneven installations. Total specified weight is 620g – not light but not nearly as heavy as the larger all-copper heatsinks”

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OCZ Platinum PC4800 1GB DC Kit @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Saturday, April 02, 2005

“While high speed TCCD is attractive, it’s difficult to find. TCCD overclocking results are also inconsistent. Enthusiasts often go through multiple purchases before finding the right kit. All those transactions are a pain. Yet now, OCZ has the fastest DDR available, the Platinum PC4800.”

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Epox EP-9NPA+ Ultra Socket 939 Motherboard Review
PCStats :: Friday, April 01, 2005
“This latest Epox motherboard, the EP9NPA+ Ultra is complete with Port 80 card and PCI Express, although SLI is not supported. PCI Express is definitely the way to go with AMD Athlon64 systems, and a single high end videocard has more than enough power for today’s games as do regular Athlon64’s and Pentium 4’s processors. The Epox EP-9NPA+ Ultra offers users a very flexible nForce 4/PCI Express platform, and has some useful integrated peripherals like a 8-channel audio, 10 USB2.0 ports, IEEE 1394a, and Gigabit LAN. It’s not the most well equipped motherboard we’ve ever dealt with, but for mainstream users I think you could say it fills out all the necessary points well.”

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ASUS Vento 3600 Case Review
PCStats :: Friday, April 01, 2005
What used to be the solitary pastime of a few geeks with Dremels and too much free time is now a full scale modding industry, and even major computer retail chains are selling ‘enthusiast’ parts like. It was while striding through the ASUS exhibit at Computex 2004 in Taipei that we first noticed the Vento 3600 case. Something about its looks captured our imagination. Beyond merely housing a computer, the Vento seemed to be begging us to leap onto it, fire up the engines and shoot off through the trees of Endor, dodging Imperial Scouts as we went… yes, it looked pretty cool. It was also behind glass, so we couldn’t play with it. Well, we’ve finally got our hands on one of these cases…”

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AMD64 Dual Core Physical Design Specs and Photo!
AMDboard :: Friday, April 01, 2005
We are now aware that Opteron dual core is slated to appear during this semester but news from AMD has been exceptionally scarce until now. Today AMDboard, the AMD specialist, is revealing some yet unknown AMD64 dual core physical design specification with an exclusive photo of the inside. Made in 90nm the current revision of the design has 205 millions transistors for the same size than a 130nm design and runs at an incredible 95W!

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DVdoctor.column – March 2005
Hexus :: Friday, April 01, 2005
Snip: But Sony – of all companies – seems to have forgotten the problems that its incompatible tape formulations caused in the early days of DV, judging by what we’re seeing happen right now with HDV tape. We appear to be back in exactly the same situation again with incompatibilities between tapes causing head clogging. Sony, seemingly, decided that these new camcorders need a better formulation of tape – the reasoning being, presumably, that drop-outs with HDV can be seriously problematic.

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Review: TITAN Vanessa S-Type Heatpipe CPU Cooler @ Tech-Mods.net
Tech-Mods.net :: Friday, April 01, 2005

“To some heatpipe technology is nothing new, what is new is applying this technology to the CPU heat reduction factor of our computer systems. Its no secret the CPU is the far most heat generator in our systems, and if there is a way to maintain a reduced temperature all the better. TITAN COMPUTER CO. brings to the table a butterfly shaped multi finned heatpipe they call the Vanessa S-Type with a 92mm fan, which happens to be designed for a universal fit. Today we are going to take a close look at the butterfly shaped Heatpipe and we’ll see if it flies or not!? ”

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Wintec AMP-X PC2-5400 DDR2 Memory Review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Friday, April 01, 2005

“With technology advancing at a rapid rate, Intel has moved to the DDR2 memory subsystem. It seems Intel views DDR2 as the upgrade path for the best performance gains in conjunction with their newest, current and future processors. On the other hand, AMD continues to stay with DDR and may move up to DDR2 in the future since their processor requirements for memory are different with the memory controller on the die. Today, we will examine and test the first DDR2 PC2-5400 modules at Xtreme Resources on the Intel 925XE platform with Wintec’s AMPX PC2-5400 1GB dual channel kit and see how it fares.”

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Skyhawk PSU ATX12V & EPS12V Compliance @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Friday, April 01, 2005
“SkyHawk claims their PowerOne power supplies are ATX12V v2.0 and EPS12V 2.1 compliant. After further investigation Legit Reviews has come to the conclusion that the forementioned Power Supplies DO NOT meet the guidelines…”

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BeanTech Igloo 11 Aluminum Case Review @ MODTHEBOX.COM
MODTHEBOX! :: Friday, April 01, 2005

“BeanTech International has done a decent job in terms of simplifying the process of keeping the Perspex window place. At the top and bottom portion of the front bezel sits a series of metal hinges which have two sets of threaded hex screws secured directly to the chassis. A small push to the locking mechanism allows the swing out front panel door to stay in place and can be easily opened with a slight pull on the front bezel.”

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DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra
hardCOREware :: Friday, April 01, 2005

Motherboard manufacturers are looking for more and more ways to distinguish their products from others. Some go further than others, giving features and solutions that are useful for different types of users. Others resort to cosmetic changes, and interesting bundles.

DFI has gained a reputation for offering killer overclocker boards that look better than any other. This time with the NF4 Ultra-D, they are also adding some innovative features like Dual PCI-E video card support, and MemTest86 in the BIOS. That’s just the tip of the iceberg though…

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AMD Athlon64 3500+ Overclocking Adventure
PCStats :: Friday, April 01, 2005
“We’re going to have a bit of fun with this chip today. We’ll test how high our Athlon64 3500+ will overclock with air cooling, but we’re also going to put the processor under the deep freeze to see how high it goes with a R404A modded Prometeia Mach I phase-change cooler.”

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Syntax Olevia LT30HV Review
Designtechnica :: Friday, April 01, 2005
“In May 2004, Syntax Group Corporation announced its entry into the LCD TV market with its Olevia brand of 27” and 30” models. Since then, Olevia has been one of the fastest-growing LCD TV brands in North America.

Syntax’s Entertainment line introduces the 30″ digital wide screen LCD TV. Displaying WXGA resolution (16:9 wide-screen format) with a 750:1 contrast ratio and 170 degree wide viewing angles, the Syntax TV is equipped with all the bells and whistles.

We decided to take a look at the LT30 30” model to see what’s behind this rapid growth.”

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HEXUS institutes legal proceedings against Beyond 3D
Hexus :: Friday, April 01, 2005
OMG! HEXUS is suing one of our brother websites! This news is huge! The following short email was sent to our news box:

Please find details here: http://www.hexus.net#b3d

I trust we have your support in this matter.

Regards, Team-HEXUS.net

BTW, April Fools!

News – LiteOn SOHW-1673s
Overclockers Online :: Friday, April 01, 2005
Today Overclockers Online has a brand new DVD±RW drive in from LiteOn! If you’re looking to upgrade your current drive, or are looking for a new one, look to see how LiteOn maintain’s its legacy with their latest 16x DVD±RW Drive! |

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News Flash – Sony Online Entertainment’s Everquest II for the PC Review
Futurelooks :: Friday, April 01, 2005

“Sony Online Entertainment addicted an entire civilization with EVERQUEST. Now they set out to do it again with their highly anticipated sequel, Everquest II. Is it better the second time around, or will it just be another bitter divorce? Find out here! ”

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Samsung Yepp YH-925GS Photo/MP3 player
PCStats :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
“The device in question is of course the Samsung Yepp YH-925GS hard disk MP3 player/photo viewer. This device is the high-end model in Samsung’s lineup of hard disk-based players. The Yepp YH-925GS contains a 20GB hard drive and sports a nice bright 1.8 inch, 260K colour LCD screen with a resolution of 160×128 pixels. The Yepp YH-925GS features SRS WOW audio processing abilities, picture storage & playback, and approximately 10 hours of audio playback care of a 3.7V Lithium-ion rechargeable battery. As you’d expect, the YH-925GS can automatically function as a USB-based HDD storage device with any Windows 2000/XP computer as well.”

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News Flash – LogitechR HarmonyR 676 Advanced Universal Remote Review
Futurelooks :: Thursday, April 28, 2005
“Do you have a zillion remotes you need to play with to get your home theatre playing? Want to eliminate them down to just one? Then read on cuz we’ve just reviewed something that we know you’ll like.”

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Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse Review Posted!
Tech ARP :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

Today, Ken, who’s a veteran Microsoft hardware user, takes a look at the wireless version of the Notebook Optical Mouse which he has been using for almost a year. Does it have what it takes to be the ultimate mobile companion? Read on the find out!”

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News Flash – Corsair Flash Voyager 512 Megabyte USB Memory Drive Review
Futurelooks :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005

“Do they call you butter fingers around the office? Are you always the one spilling coffee in your laptop? Well, maybe this USB Flash Drive is for you! You can splash it, drop it, and it’ll survive!”

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Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Review @ Tweaknews
Tweaknews :: Saturday, April 09, 2005

“For $70 USD you can pick this little gem up and it is well worth it. The practical applications of a wireless desktop set are endless and to have it work as well as a wired set is even greater. If you are restricted to where you can place your tower because of input cord lengths, or are just sick of having wires tangled all over the place, than this set is for you.”

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RCA Scenium HD61THW263
Designtechnica :: Friday, April 08, 2005
“The HD61THW263 includes four television tuners: dual NTSC (for regular TV broadcasts), ATSC (for over-the-air HD broadcasts), and QAM (for “in-the-clear” cable HD broadcasts). It is also Digital Cable Ready and accepts CableCARD. What really separates this display from other DLP displays (and other rear projection micro-display TVs) is the fact that it is only 6.85-in. deep, and can be hung on the wall like a plasma or LCD flat-panel display. Can you imagine? Truly amazing!

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In-depth Logitech MediaPlay Cordless Mouse Review
Everything USB :: Friday, April 08, 2005
“The Logitech MediaPlay serves an interesting niche in the mouse market that no other mouse manufacturer has even entered yet, by doubling as both an optical mouse and a wireless remote to add HTPC functionality to your computer. The black body of the mouse in in an elongated hour-glass shape with a high arch to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, with a rubberized blue trim to highlight the mouse’s shape and a silvery blue top that compliments our monitor, speakers, and the enhanced function keys of our keyboard.”

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Samsung YH-925 20 GB Digital Audio Player @ TechTastic.ca
TechTastic :: Thursday, April 07, 2005

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One of the best ways to carry a lot of music with you is to use a hard drive based MP3 player. Samsung, a relative new comer in the MP3 market has just released their interpretation of the hard drive based MP3 player called the YH-925 20GB Digital Audio Player. This sleek small player holds up to 1200 hours of your favorite songs. Plus you can transfer and store digital pictures and view them on the vivid colour display.

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Saitek Gamer’s Keyboard @ TheTechLounge
The Tech Lounge :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005

“When it comes down to it, the Saitek gaming keyboard and command pad are nothing extraordinary and frankly I could live without the command pad entirely for the games that I play. But that’s not to say I don’t like them. The command pad will probably get unplugged and set aside somewhere, but the keyboard is rather cool. At $45 it’s much spendier than your run-of-the-mill beige keyboard, but this thing has some actual decent looks to it and the purty backlight matches my case and all its purty lights. Also, $45 is a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives out there like the EluminX or the Deck LED keyboard you might have seen on ThinkGeek or elsewhere.

If you’re looking for a new keyboard and want something with a little style to it, pick up the Saitek gaming keyboard. The command pad is one of those things that you will either love or hate, but the keyboard is great so long as you aren’t expecting something that will make it easy to read the keys in the dark.”

 

BlueTake BT510 Bluetooth Laptop Mouse Review @ The Tech Zone
The Tech Zone :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
While most wireless mice ships with some type of wireless receiver – either Bluetooth or RF – The BLUETAKE BT510 ships with no receiver what-so-ever. So if your notebook doesn’t have Bluetooth built in or if you don’t have access to a Bluetooth adapter like the BT009Si , you won’t be able to use this mouse. Omitting the Bluetooth adapter does reduce the cost of the BT510 however.

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In-depth Logitech MX518 Review
Everything USB :: Friday, April 01, 2005
“Optical illusions are fascinating. What are really just a few dots of ink can effectively fool the mind’s depth perception and color recognition, enough to make you look twice and try to feel what’s actually there. The MX518 takes advantage of this art with its new faceplate. A dark metallic silver color appears to absorb light in different areas, giving off the appearance of very deep dents in the mouse itself. The Swiss-cheese-like ‘holes’ are very similar to the NASA photos of moon craters, or perhaps more like someone putting speed holes in a new car with a pickaxe. Whatever it looks like, it will definitely pull attention on store shelves with the see-through box it’s packaged in.”

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Dell Axim X50v Pocket PC Review @ The Tech Zone
The Tech Zone :: Friday, April 01, 2005

The powerful Dell Axim X50v Pocket PC features a large 3.7″ VGA display that provides brilliant, clear images at 640×480 resolution. This was previously unheard of in a handheld device. The large viewing area makes documents easy to see so you can work smart and fast. In addition to the big screen display, the X50v features the fastest CPU ever placed inside a Pocket PC; an Intel XScale PXA270 Processor running at 624MHz!

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SoundBlaster Audigy 2 NX review @ techniz.co.uk
Techniz.co.uk :: Saturday, April 30, 2005

“The overall package is well packed with software, you can play cd’s DVD’s, record audio and change the way it sounds, ie using sound profiles ie CMSS. The handy demo CD igives you an idea of WHAT this card can really do. The good thing with this unit that you can have three inputs, and still have a 5.1 speaker system plugged it. Many other units make use of the mic and line inputs to provide the 5.1 support, not this one!”

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Asus Extreme N6600GT/TOP Limited Edition Videocard review @ XtremeResources
Xtreme Resources :: Thursday, April 28, 2005

“With every new generation of video cards come many iterations of the new technology. With nVidia’s introduction of the 6 series of GPUs, there have come multiple cards based on similar families of GPUs. Most notably the 6800 family brought to the table the 6800, 6800GT and 6800 Ultra. Likewise with the midrange 6 series card(s) I’ll be looking at today, the Asus Extreme N6600GT/TOP/TD, there are many flavors based on the enthusiast’s budget. With the Extreme N6600GT/TOP/TD we have what is one of the most expensive 6600GTs on the market, but include Asus’ reputation for ultra high quality components, build quality, and with this model, equipped with 128 MB of Samsung 1.6ns DDR3. Follow along on my evaluation to see if this Limited Edition card provides the performance to go along with it’s higher than average price tag.”

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Albatron 6600GT PCI-E 128MB VGA Review @ OCNZ
Overclockers New Zealand :: Thursday, April 21, 2005
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What can I say? Albatron managed a fine score at the stock speed, as expected with its reference design, and achieved an unprecedented overclocking of 597MHz core and 1200MHz memory, thanks to the use of copper HSF. ”

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GIGABYTE GeForce 6600 TurboForce Ultra Edition @ Techniz
Techniz.co.uk :: Thursday, April 21, 2005

” The GigaByte GeForce 6600 128MB PCI-Express graphic card is great mid range graphic card. The performance of this GigaByte GeForce 6600 128MB PCI-Express graphic card is out perform the ATI 9800 series even the ATI X700 Pro and it was very close to the GeForce 6600GT performance. Beside that, the bundles was very good which including of a full game of the Thief. As for the overclocking results from this GigaByte GeForce 6600 128MB PCI-Express graphic card is very good as well. There was an increment of 137MHz for the core and 200MHz for the memory that brings up from the default at 500/1000MHz to 587MHz/1200MHz. This was the most value and affordable price for the main stream users. Highly Recommended! ”

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nVidia nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition
TweakTown :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
“After many hours of blood, sweat and tears we’ve finished our look at nVidia’s latest chipset for the Intel Pentium 4 platform. It’s the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition or as its become known around the labs, the NF4 IE. It follows the features found in the nForce series of chipsets but helps fills a gap in the gaming market offering SLI gaming performance on the Intel platform.”

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Turtle Beach Video Advantage USB at Designtechnica
Designtechnica :: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
“If you hadn’t noticed lately, the age of digital entertainment is more than upon us. Your old analog VCR and camcorder which served you so well through the early 90s are wearing down, as well as the tapes you use with them. It is time to digitally convert and backup your old wedding and graduation videos if you hope to keep them for the future. Turtle Beach, a maker of PC audio solutions, thinks they have an easy solution to help in this endeavor in the form of the Video Advantage USB.”

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Albatron PC6600GT Video Card Review @ LAN Addict
LAN Addict :: Sunday, April 10, 2005

“When all is said and done, I think the Albatron 6600 GT is a great mainstream card. I would have liked NVIDIA to support OpenGL 2.0 with the 6xxx series, like ATi has done with the X8xxXL cards. When it comes to performance, the PC6600GT is great. This card is one of the best mainstream cards on the market, and for $200, it’s priced to sell.”

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MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E Geforce 6800GT Videocard
PCStats :: Friday, April 08, 2005
“PCSTATS is pleased to be looking at the MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E Geforce 6800GT-based PCI-Express videocard in this report. Beyond the catchy name, the NX6800GT’s notable points are 256MB of GDDR3 Samsung BGA DRAM, and that it doesn’t take up an extra slot on your motherboard with a huge cooling solution like ATI seem so fond of doing lately. nVidia had its fun in this ballpark with a loud, and now obsolete GeForce 6800 Ultra videocard series. Quiet is king, so listen closely as we dish out the details…”

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Samsung SyncMaster 243T 24-inch LCD Display Review
PCStats :: Friday, April 08, 2005
“In this review, PCSTATS will be testing out one of its latest TFT-LCD models, the 24-inch Samsung SyncMaster 243T. This lovely piece of LCD technology sports some impressive specs including a 1920×1200 native resolution, a 500:1 contrast ratio, 170 degree horizontal/vertical viewing angles, 0.270mm pixel pitch, a pivoting display and dual digital/analog modes. It is ideally intended for commercial applications where its wide viewing angles and crisp graphics would be a definite asset. At a cost of approximately $2700 CDN, this is not a home desktop monitor by any stretch of the imagination.”

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Albatron Px915P4/G4 Pro Review @ Techware Labs
Techwarelabs :: Thursday, April 07, 2005
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Albatron is a name you are probably becoming more familiar with these days. They make some of the best products available in the computer market. Their product line extends from Wifi Audio to SFF barebones and also Plasma screens. See how their motherboard ranks with the others we have tested.

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HIS Radeon X800XL Review @ OCC
Overclocker Café :: Thursday, April 07, 2005

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If you’re going to do a price/performance comparison this card is going to come out on top every time. Quite a bit less expensive and yet still giving out excellent performance. By overclocking this card, you can reach equivalent frame rates of the X850XT at stock speeds, and all for no extra money. You just can’t ask for more than that. Though I have yet to handle an nVidia based 6800GT, this cards direct competitor, I’d have to say that this card is truly going to be the card to beat in it’s price range.

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NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Tuesday, April 05, 2005
“Application performance is probably secondary as the nForce4 SLI is aimed squarely at gamers and enthusiasts. Going back to AMD Vs Intel, it used to be pretty clearly AMD all the way, but now the waters have muddied somewhat as the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition has bridged the gap by allowing the user to plug in two NVIDIA cards into their system. Granted, one card will also do for those who can’t splurge on two cards, but the idea we’re trying to make clear is you now have a choice.”

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Samsung SyncMaster 243T 24-inch LCD Display @ PCStats
PCStats :: Saturday, April 02, 2005
“In this review, PCSTATS will be testing out one of it’s latest TFT-LCD models, the 24-inch Samsung SyncMaster 243T. This lovely piece of LCD technology sports some impressive specs including a 1920×1200 native resolution, a 500:1 contrast ratio, 170 degree horizontal/vertical viewing angles, 0.270mm pixel pitch, a pivoting display and dual digital/analog modes. It is ideally intended for commercial applications where its wide viewing angles and crisp graphics would be a definite asset. At a cost of approximately $2700 CDN, this is not a home desktop monitor by any stretch of the imagination”

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SilverStone Gemini ST46GF Redundant Power Supply
SystemCooling :: Saturday, April 02, 2005

“SystemCooling.com has reviewed a lot of power supplies over the past two years but none that provided hardware redundancy and hot-swap capabilities. The new SilverStone Gemini series ST46GF is actually two power supplies in one. Each power supply module is capable of delivering 460 watts continuous power. During normal operation the two modules share the load but if either one should fail, the other module will automatically carry the full load”

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BFG Tech GeForce 6600 GT OC (Solo and SLI) @ Bjorn3D
Bjorn3D :: Friday, April 01, 2005
For the out-of-the-box warrantied overclock, you will have to pay a slight price premium over stock speed 6600 GT’s, but if you want one of the highest performing 6600 GT’s available, then BFG has you covered with its 6600 GT OC. It’s a great card with cool looks and a mediocre bundle. As always, though, I have to emphasize BFG’s lifetime warranty and 24×7 tech support. Those two things are very big selling points to me and offer a lot of comfort you just can’t get from many other companies.

Obviously since the 6600 GT OC offers great performance by itself, it will also provide some of the best performance numbers (if not the best) in SLI mode when you set up a pair of them on your SLI motherboard. If performance and support are your top concerns, then look no further than BFG. The ‘OC’ line continues to offer top performance.

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Albatron PX925XE Pro-R @ Viperlair
ViperLair :: Friday, April 01, 2005
“The Albatron PX925XE Pro-R is a fine board but not one that a true hardcore enthusiast should aim for; if balls out overclocking is your thing you should look elsewhere. That said, if you have a 200FSB CPU, you can feel safe in the knowledge that the 925XE will allow you headroom up to 266FSB at least, but the same can be said of other 925XE boards.”

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The Ingredients For A Great Computer Game @ The Tech Zone
The Tech Zone :: Friday, April 01, 2005
There are millions of computer games out there on the market, how do you make your game best selling? What features have to be included? I have taken a look on previously best sellers trying to determine what makes a great game.

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