ATI HD 3850 256MB Videocard Review
Hardware Logic :: Monday, January 07, 2008
“Turbulent. Tumultuous. Bumpy. Disappointing. There’s no shortage of unflattering adjectives to describe AMD’s journey through 2007, including their graphics division, ATI. Purchased just over a year ago for roughly $5.4 billion, the acquisition’s long-term verdict remains to be written. In the meantime, the short-term outlook hasn’t been rosy up to this point, with ATI conceding defeat in the high end GPU arena and instead focusing primarily on the budget and lower mid-range sectors, much to the chagrin of the ATI-loyal. That’s about to change.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, ATI still doesn’t have an answer for nVidia’s flagship 8800GTX and Ultra GPUs, but with the release of the RV670 core, they’re no longer relegating themselves to the lower end graphics market, and seem to be targeting the upper mainstream market with a vengeance.”
VisionTek TV Wonder 650PCIe
Bjorn 3d :: Monday, January 07, 2008
The core of any TV tuner is the chip that is designed to receive the signal. Currently, there are various chips that are designed to receive different signals. If you have purchased a TV tuner two years ago, you are most likely to have a card that only receives analog signal. Lately, the newer tuner card comes with digital tuner receivers which receives DVB or ATSC transmissions. Many newer and more expensive tuners even come with both tuners (combo) where users are able to receive both signals. A combo tuner is different from hybrid tuner. A combo tuner can receive both digital and analog together to allow users to watch TV coming from both signals while a hybrid tuner can only receive one or the other.
AMD (ATI) was the leader in the PVR with their All-in-Wonder graphic card (where a powerful graphic card that function as both a gaming card and PVR). Unfortunately, AMD has decided to abandon any further development of All-in-Wonder all together and focusing on gaming graphic cards. Luckily, AMD has not totally abandoned their development of multimedia add-on cards as their hardware can be considered as some of the best. Their latest TV Wonder 650 line-up has combined many proven technologies into one of the arguably best TV tuner card found on a consumer desktop. Today, we will take a look at one of the best of the bunch, courtesy of VisionTek—The VisionTek TV Wonder 650 PCIe.
Microsoft Windows XP SP3 RC Does NOT Support HDA
Tech ARP :: Monday, January 07, 2008
“When you try installing the KB888111 which works for SP1 and SP2, it will not work for Service Pack 3, at least for the current SP3 RC v3264. Instead, you will be prompted with a message saying that the current service pack installed is newer than the fix you are trying to apply. Even the older KB835221 does not work.”
Saitek Cyborg 5.1 Headset
BIOS Level :: Sunday, January 06, 2008
“Saitek was founded in 1979, and entered the PC gaming controller market in 1993. All these products are designed by gamers for gamers, to help them get the best out of their favorite PC games. A few days ago, we looked at their Obsidian Wireless Mouse, and today we’re looking at one of its latest products: the Cyborg 5.1 Headset. The Cyborg range is the latest in their gamer-centric product line, using the slogan “the ultimate man/machine interface”.”
AMD Releases Additional R600 GPU Programming Documentation
Phoronix :: Sunday, January 06, 2008
“In the second NDA-free documentation dump, AMD has just released programming data on the M76 and RS690 graphics processors. While the RadeonHD developers have already had these documents, this information will help the free software community in understanding the internal workings of AMD’s graphics processors. In this article, we have information on this just-released data as well as what else the community can expect in the way of documentation in the near future.”
ATI Catalyst 7.12 Analysis – XP & Vista
Tweak Town :: Sunday, January 06, 2008
“Ho Ho Ho! We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year, and if you have bought yourself a new Radeon based graphics card over the holiday period there is no doubt you want to see if it’s worth jumping to the newer Catalyst 7.12 driver suite.
Let’s not delay as we have some performance improvements promised which you can see mentioned in the release notes.”
Crysis Benchmarking Guide 
Tech ARP :: Sunday, January 06, 2008
“At this moment, Crysis is the toughest test you can subject any graphics card to. It requires so much graphics processing power that it humbles even new graphics cards like the GeForce 8800 GT and the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB graphics card. As such, it serves as a great benchmark for graphics cards (as well as CPUs).”
V7 D24W33 24 Inch (HDMI) LCD Monitor Review
Motherboards.org :: Sunday, January 06, 2008
The V7 group delivers on this one folks as this is one very nice 24’’ monitor that will exceed your expectations. Fast response times, excellent color and clear text are just a few key elements that make the V7 D24W33 a very appealing product. You will really like the available adjustments on this one as well, as it is more flexible and features great tilt and height adjustment for custom setups. Overall there is nothing not to like about this fine product, and it is priced right at around $459.00 MSRP.
WidowPC 8800GTX Mobile Gaming Hits The Web
Maxit Mag :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
If you’ve been enjoying Crysis on your super powered desktop PC over the holiday season you’ll probably know what a power hungry beast it is. Currently no PC can handle Crysis on maximum eye candy – even SLI 8800GTX’s. So how about some laptop gaming. The thought of playing a next generation game on the go usually conjures images of power point presentation FPS gaming. Enter the new WidowPC Sting 517D2 (http://www.widowpc.com/store/build-gaming-laptop-517d2.php?systype=19 fsb=65 ccc_pics=true). And what a sting it packs. Using the new 8800M GTX NVIDIA Go graphics cards, it’s one of the first laptops on the market that can handle serious gaming and can even run Crysis at decent frame rates in Direct X10 with some serious eye candy settings. The rest of the specs looks equally impressive with a 17″ 1680 x 1050 WSXGA+ or 1920 x 1200 WUXGA widescreen displa, choice of Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 / T7300 / T7500 / T770 processor, up to 4GB RAM, 250GB hard drive or a very sexy 32GB SSD, dual layer DVD burner, Fingerprint reader for security and Vista Ultimate. The full package will set you back some $4,000 dollars but those with more modest ambitions can jump aboard with prices starting at around $2,000.
Palit GeForce 8800 GT Review
Overclockers Club :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Hot Home-Theater Gear
PC Magazine (Speakers) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Our favorite home-entertainment products are sure to keep you warm this winter.
DX 10.1 Global Illumination
Maxit Mag :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
With the Radeon HD 3800, AMD/ATI got to be the first that had a Shader Model 4.1 compliant graphics card in the shelves. Among the upgrades it incorporates, Global Illumination shines . This technique:
[…] can deliver ray trace quality effects including indirect lighting, color bleeding, soft shadows, refraction, and high quality glossy reflections to a scene.
Below, you’ll find a link to a screenshot from an AMD demo that illustrates this subject. I would rather say that it exaggerates this new DirectX weapon. It’s unclear if games will be able to implement this feature in a way that’s so dramatic as you can see here (http://images.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/amd_hd_3800_to_support_dx_10/gi-demo10-7.jpg) but, if they do, at that same moment, Geforce 8 cards will have their days numbered. The fact that AMD hasn’t considered DX 10.1 as a basic marketing strategy may indicate that such games are nowhere to be seen just yet, though. Link: Tom’s Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/amd_hd_3800_to_support_dx_10/page3.html).
Abit IX38 Quad GT Review
Overclockers Club :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin iPod Dock Review
i4u :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
“Sound is the real appeal of the B&W Zeppelin, and it has sound in droves. I like bass to my music , but not to the point of overpowering the mids and high sounds. The B&W Zeppelin has fantastic bass along with crisp and sharp highs and mid range sounds. Sound output is rich and to achieve this the B&W Zeppelin uses three amplifiers, one for the mid, one for left, one for right and one for bass.”
Asus 8800GT Top Videocard Review
RB Mods :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Today we take a look at one of the most talked about videocard on the market. You got it, we have the 8800GT card on our test bench today. To make things even more interesting it is also the Top version from Asus which is already overclocked so we are expecting some real performance from this card. We are also going to look at noise and temperatures to really see if this card is worth the 250$ that it costs out on the market.
Hot Home-Theater Gear
PC Magazine (HDTV) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Our favorite home-entertainment products are sure to keep you warm this winter.
Westinghouse Shows First Wireless HDTV
PC Magazine (HDTV) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Westinghouse and Pulse~LINK team up for the first HDTV that uses wireless technology to transmit information.
Pioneer Elite KURO PRO-150FD
PC Magazine (HDTV) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
The Pioneer Elite KURO PRO-150FD delivers the best HD picture quality we’ve seen in a plasma television. This KURO deserves serious kudos.
Sharp LC-32D40U
PC Magazine (HDTV) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
The Sharp LC-32D40U Aquos isn’t the least expensive 32-inch liquid crystal widescreen television out there, but it provided the most natural, realistic picture I’ve seen among similar displays.
Bose Companion 5 Multimedia Speaker System
PC Magazine (Speakers) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Bose’s “surround-like” Companion 5 setup sounds good but won’t fool you.
LG.Philips to Show Off Nifty Touch Displays at CES
PC Magazine (HDTV) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
LG.Philips said over the holiday that it plans to show off a new lineup of “public” (large-format displays designed for shopping malls and the like) LCDs that include multi-touch capabilities and a separate line of multi-view LCDs.
Hot Home-Theater Gear
PC Magazine (HDTV) :: Saturday, January 05, 2008
Our favorite home-entertainment products are sure to keep you warm this winter.
Asus EN8800GT TOP Geforce 8800GT 512MB Videocard Review
PC Stats :: Friday, January 04, 2008
“For the latest games you need a killer fast DirectX10 compliant videocard and a computer loaded with Windows Vista. Enter ASUS and a very strong contender for your cash – the PCI Express x16 ASUS EN8800GT TOP/G/HTDP/512M/A videocard. GeForce 8800GT-class videocards tend to overclock well, so it’s no surprise that many come pre-overclocked from the factory floor. The Asus EN8800GT TOP videocard is tweaked to 700 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory, up from the default 600 MHz core / 900 MHz memory settings. Heck it’s even faster than a Geforce 8800GTS’s 650 MHz core and 970 MHz default clock speed! Oh Asus, how you spoil us gamers!”
