Tech News August 2003

by NewsAugust 31, 2003June 29, 201402

X-500 Aluminum Mid-Tower
Xoxide :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“The X500 features 1.0mm anodized aluminum alloy, which is resistant to fingerprints and dust. Fingerprints, as you know, leave oil which can tarnish unprotected surfaces such as aluminum. The anodizing also does an excellent job of resisting scratches.”

reviewed Cold cathode fans from Sunbeam
Red & Blackness Mods :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“When you think of the word modding, one brand probably pops into your mind right away and that’s Sunbeam! Today we are having a look at their CCFL fans. They seem to be high quality and you can probably use these as case fans and various other things to light and cool off your case a little :) I recieved a few different colored ones so stay tuned and check out this review.”

Building a Shuttle System
Think Computers :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“Lately a lot of my friends have been asking me to build them computers for college. Most of them are not into case modding or anything like that, so they do not need anything special. If you have been to most college dorm’s they are not very big so I had to find something small, but powerful. Also price was an issue, my friends did not want to spend $2000 on something that they would only use for typing and surfing the web. So I thought about it for a while, and I decide to try one of the Shuttle systems out. When I was installing the system there were some things that were different and cool. So today we will take a look at how to build a Shuttle system!”

AMK “DaBenz” PC Case Review
Short-Media :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“A PC case with headlights and a grill? It’s true and AMK Computers let us take DaBenz out for a test drive. It has been our experience that many PC cases are the same chassis except for the bezel but AMK chooses their product line carefully. It’s not until the “up close and personal” do the reasons why become obvious.”

3-Way Thermal Interface Material Shootout
TweakTown :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“With processors and video boards getting more powerful, they are also getting considerably hotter. Anyone with a computer needs to take a look at cooling. But there is more to this topic than just a good heatsink. There also has to be a manner to transfer the heat built up from the processor TO that good heatsink. This is where a good Thermal Interface Material (TIM) comes into play. Come join Mike “Darthtanion” Wright as he pits Arctic Silver III against OCZ Ultra II against Arctic Silver Ceramique. Who knows, the results just might surprise you!”

Enermax CS-5107 Tower review
ViperLair :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“This case is really great for all users. It provides the good performance and looks that the enthusiast is looking for as well as the average user as it is competitively priced. The exclusion of some features such as thumbscrews was a bit of a downer, but the inclusion of features like the removable motherboard tray and it’s stunningly good looks made up for it.”

Zalman NP Heatpipe HDD Cooler ZM-2HC1
SystemCooling :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“In the quest for heat dissipation, heat pipe technology has become a major and quite fashionable selling point. Appearing first in CPU heat sinks, then in video card coolers, it was inevitable that heat pipes would start appearing in other areas of system cooling. And so it has. Today we’re going to take a look at one of the newest products in Zalman’s line of NP (noise prevention) cooling products, the ZM-2HC1 Heatpipe Hard Drive Cooler.”

Kingwin KT-436 Case review
PimpRig :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“The little things make all the difference when you buy anything. If a company will put forth effort in the little things, you will have confidence that the more important items were well thought out. Kingwin excels in this, for instance, the screws for installing drives are anodized black. They blend right in with the anodized black interior.”

Xonix Mega Memory Watch
SystemCooling :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“We all know people who go around town with one of those “USB Thumb Drives” dangling from a key ring or clipped on to their pocket protector; only a true geek uses the latter. Well, Xonix thought about it and knew there had to be a more stylish way to transport data around, so they built a better mouse trap, the Xonix Mega Memory Watch and packed it with 128 Mbytes of memory.”

Acousticase review
Ripnet-UK :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“Silence is indeed golden. Now that computers are being used increasingly throughout the home people are becoming less and less happy to endure the constant droning emitted by modern high-powered PC’s. Consequently a number of innovations have been made to help with noise reduction, probably one of the first to hit the mainstream being variable-speed cooling fans. Now cases are also being produced with peace and quiet featuring highly on their list of design priorities.”

Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu review
DataFuse :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“Five months ago I was putting Zalman’s predecessor, the CNPS7000-CU on the testbench, now I take a closer look at the CNPS7000A-CU. This version or actually revision is made to fit all current sockets. When I say current I mean: Socket 478 (Intel pentium 4), Socket 462 (AMD athlon, duron, athlon XP), but also socket 754 (AMD Athlon 64). In my previous review about the earlier product, I pointed out its only flaw was that it didn’t fit the Socket 462. Zalman responded pretty swiftly, although 5 months probably ain’t that fast in the “IT-World”. (BTW: glad to be once again the first to review something ;)) ”

Crucial DDR PC3200 Review
GruntvillE :: Saturday, August 09, 2003

“As you can see the memory performed quite well in its stock configuration and benefited only slightly by a little tweaking of the timings. One unexpected result was the declining SYSmark score. I ran these tests several times and they were all plagued by this strange outcome. Seeing as SYSmark is a much more multifaceted, real world benchmark, I’m inclined to believe that the performance really does drop with the adjusted timings. This would also explain Crucial’s decision to classify the modules as CL3. The Crucial engineers are much more likely to run simulated benchmarks of typical content creation and office productivity tasks than your latest game demos. To make things easier for comparisons sake, here are all the results arranged into a table.”

X-SuperAlien Aluminum Mid-Tower (Black)
Xoxide :: Saturday, August 09, 2003

“This case is a gamers dream come true. The SuperAlien mid-tower case comes full of extra features to make your case the coolest around (<– coolest, get it?). The case includes a total of 6 80mm quad blue LED UV sensitive fans, and an LCD temperature display on the front of the case with 2 adjustable fan speed controller. The full size side window allows the user to view everything inside of their case, and also includes one of the six fans on it. This fan, along with the top fan comes with the orginally designed SuperAlien Grill. Other features of this case include a tool-free removable motherboard tray and drive bays in both the 5 5.25″ bays and the 5 3.5″ bays. The tool-free drive bays use drive rails so that the drives can slide in and out instead of screwing in. Lastly the case comes with a lockable side panel and front panel for added privacy and security.”

Upgradeware XP-TMC Athlon XP Multiplier Upgrade Kit Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Saturday, August 09, 2003

“The XP-TMC consists of add-on module that must be installed between the ZIF socket of a standard motherboard and the AMD XP CPU itself. The XP-TMC module like the CPU core has 462 integrated pins located on the top and bottom. The bottom side of the XP-TMC includes a series of 5 toggle switches (similar to dip-switches) labelled S1-S5, which allow you the manually adjust the multiplier setting. The XP-TMC has a multiplier range of 5.0x to 24.0x and users should consult their CPU reference documentation and motherboard manual for the appropriate setting.”

FraggPad Magnum Gaming Surface Review
MODTHEBOX! :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“The Magnum is composed of 6mm 1/4″ acrylic and measures 38 cm long and 26 cm tall, both at the longest points. The shape of the Fraggpad Magnum is similar to a kidney shape, with the one end narrowed and elongated. On the lower right of the Magnum is the purple FraggPad logo (optionally a yellow version is available), which has been applied to the front of the pad. While I am fairly sure this is to protect the logo, a closer inspection reveals that it will wear off over time.”

FraggPad Magnum Mouse Surface Review
Furioustech :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“Are you a square? How about your mouse pad or surface is it square? Well today you fragging fiends we have the FraggPad Magnum mouse surface from Voyermods. Not only is it a great surface but it has a unique shape. Check this baby out, break out of that square mold and come on in!”

External USB 2.0 Portable Storage Kits Review
OCIA :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“External drives are following the same paradigms as external drives are growing larger and faster, or more compact and portable. Today I am going to compare two external cases that both are designed to be powered off of the USB 2.0 ports and hold a 2.5 Laptop Hard Drive. It is not intended that this review be a technical treatise on the speed of such drives but is more focused on the pros and cons of these two drive enclosures and their unique features.”

SteelPad 4S – Gaming Mousepad
KEPtech :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“The gaming community is growing at a very fast pace. In the case of online gaming, there is competition – very strong competition. With online First Person Shooter games, all the players want the best rig to run their game smoothly; the best sound system to strategically locate the enemies, and the best mouse to quickly and accurately target them. If you have ever played any first person shooter games, you’ll know that the mouse is almost as important as the computer. ”

Bluetooth modem from X-Micro
Red & Blackness Mods :: Sunday, August 24, 2003

“We have reviewed a few XMicro products lately and they have all turned out to get at least 4 out of 5 so this Bluetooth dongle has some pressure on it to stand up to the expectations. Alot of people still use a modem so a Bluetooth one that doesn’t need a cable between the computer and the modem seems like a good buy. Basically you can place it anywhere you want since you don’t need a cable. How is the transfer speed?! How far away can it be?! Well let’s see.”

Chaintech Apogee A-FX71 Geforce FX5600 Ultra Ver2
Monkey Review :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“The results are enough to speak for themselves. I’m impressed with the overall performance and look of the Chaintech A-FX71 FX5600 Ultra v2. There is little doubt in my mind that the A-FX71 would look stellar in almost any environment that would allow it to be shown off. As mentioned at the start of this review, the card is a little more expensive than many of the budget cards available. The upshot is that you’re getting a fair amount for your money; a lucrative bundle combined with a high performing and good looking card.”

ATI TV Wonder VE Remote Control Edition Review
Tweaknews :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“Having a product that is cheap and so easy to install, the ATI TV Wonder Remote Control Edition is by far a great buy. For ~US$75, you can compliment your videocard with a whole multimedia suite that is simple to use and proven to work flawlessly. As I have said before, once you have TV on your computer, you will never be without it again.”

Chaintech GeForce FX 5600 Ultra Review
Overclocker Café :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“The first one we notice is the big honkin’ GPU sink. It looks like a passive heatsink, but in fact is not. This is part of Chaintech Gas-Turbine cooling system. Looking in front of the sink, we see a fan with a clear plastic shroud around it. The fan is designed to blow air across the sink and through the grooves to help push the heat away from the GPU.”

Altec Lansing XA3051 Home Theater Speakers
The Tech Lounge :: Saturday, August 30, 2003

“Are you a lazy bloke that likes to sit in front of your TV all day and play video games? Don’t listen to your mother or your wife, this is a good thing. What could be better than kicking back with a cold beverage* in one hand, and a remote or your favorite console’s controller in the other hand; All the while having a sub blasting hard enough to make you shake with every explosion, or every footstep for that matter. Let’s see if the XA3051 can do the job.”

Chaintech FX71 5600 Ultra Video Card Review
IpKonfig :: Sunday, August 24, 2003

“NVIDIA’s GeForce FX chipset has been, for the most part, well accepted in the gaming community, a fine achievement on NVIDIA’s part. Its latest graphics processor introduces newer features for better game play. Using 0.13u process technology, the FX chipset provides significant speed increases. . . . This card in particular is very attractive, in part due to Chaintech’s designers. You’ll find that most of its products exhibit very nice cosmetic designs. The Chaintech FX71 5600 Ultra video card has a functional purpose behind its sexy looks, too. The enclosed design was designed to produce better cooling for today’s demanding graphic processors. By using Gas Turbine Technology (GT), it can average around 10-15°C better cooling than other standard methods. The Gas Turbine technology works in the same way, for the most part, as an airplane engine.”

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder review
Hexus :: Friday, August 15, 2003

“As the ultimate combination of 3D speed, 2D quality and the All-In-Wonder feature set, it has no peer, and probably wont have for quite a long time.”

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