Tech News December 2004

by NewsDecember 31, 2004June 29, 2014022

Cardo Wireless Scala-500 Headset Review @ CoolTechZone
CoolTechZone :: Saturday, December 25, 2004

“The only aspect that is left to touchup on is the price. The Scala-500 is a flagship product from Cardo Systems and the manufacturer will surely make you realize that. This particular headset retails around $79.99, which makes it one of the most expensive in its category. Is the price justifiable? Most certainly! There are few products that truly deserve nothing but positive comments and recommendations regardless their price, and the Scala-500 happens to be one of those few. Clearly, the Scala-500 headset is not designed for everyone. It’s for those executives and users who must travel for one reason or another and need a comfortable headset with rechargeable capabilities.”

Samsung SCX 4100 Multifunction Printer @ GideonTech
GideonTech :: Saturday, December 25, 2004
“I’ve always been wary of multifunction printers as they provide a lot of options but none are all that great on it’s own. Whether it be scanning or printing an image, it used to be better to just buy separate devices and hooking them up. With SCX4100 from Samsung, things may just have changed.”

CaseBuy USB Vacuum @ HardwareHounds.com
HardwareHounds :: Wednesday, December 22, 2004

“Everybody likes to be surprised once in a while. So when something comes along that makes us take a second look, we just have to tell the world about it. A case in point is the subject of this review; the USB vacuum from CaseBuy Tech. This small handheld gadget proves that there are still companies out there who can produce something you didn’t even know you needed. Approximately 6 inches long, it comes with 2 interchangeable heads (or tool attachments), a small LED light built into the vacuum itself and 3 different settings.”

Saitek Gamers Keyboard review @ ModdersHQ
ModdersHQ.net :: Friday, December 17, 2004

“I’m going out on a limb and stating the following…Chances are if you show me a modder, there is a darn good chance this individual is also a gamer. From my experience with the rag-tag group of people I deal with, most were gamers before modders. With that being said, Saitek has developed a keyboard geared towards the gamer but should appeal to the modders as well”

Logitech QuickCam Orbit Webcam Review @ The Tech Zone
The Tech Zone :: Friday, December 17, 2004

“What makes the QuickCam Orbit unique is the motorized camera head combined with face tracking software which allows the camera lens to follow its subject – up and down, or left and right – as that person shifts in a chair or moves freely about the room. The webcam also features a 9-inch stand, so the camera can be at eye level, whether on a desk or resting on top of a monitor.”

D-LINK UNVEILS FIRST GIGABIT GAMING ROUTER
D-Link :: Thursday, December 09, 2004

OCmodshop will have this exiting new router from D-Link to review very soon, so check back here shortly for it.

D-Link, the global leader in consumer network connectivity, today announced the industry’s first Gaming Router. The new D-Link GamerLounge™ wireless router (DGL-4300) features D-Link GameFuel technologies, a new intelligent packet processing engine integrated directly on the router, giving online games precedence for bandwidth over all other Internet applications, email and FTP transfers. The D-Link GamerLounge wireless router is also the first router to brandish four 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet ports with up to 108Mbps 802.11g wireless connectivity for blazing fast LAN party and WLAN connections. Optimized for PC, Xbox™ and PlayStation®2 games, the D-Link GamerLounge wireless router provides gamers with increased control to maximize online performance for the ultimate “no lag” gaming experience.

The D-Link GamerLounge wireless router enables users to setup a high-performance gaming network that offers the fastest wired and wireless speeds available from a single broadband device. The game-centric user interface of the Gaming Router allows for the configuration of multiple ports or port ranges simply by selecting the game title from a menu. With an easy to use, Flash-based Web interface, the D-Link GamerLounge wireless router can be accessed quickly to change settings and adjust performance for individual applications.

Delivering sophisticated firewall protection, the D-Link GamerLounge wireless router is easily configured through the advanced features section of the product’s web-based interface. The router features a high performance CPU to support advanced management features such as MAC address authentication, Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) and Content Filtering. The D-Link GamerLounge wireless router features robust security to protect the wireless network from intruders, supporting the latest wireless networking security standards, including WEP encryption and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) support for both 802.1x and WPA-PSK.

To support the new flagship product line, D-Link has launched the new GamerLounge Website. The site contains additional information about the D-Link GamerLounge wireless router as well as new posting on the latest D-Link sponsored gaming events, promotions and game application updates. The site can be experienced at http://games.dlink.com/

Logitech MX900 Bluetooth Mouse Review @ The Tech Zone
The Tech Zone :: Wednesday, December 08, 2004

“What the MX900 does bring to the table over the MX700 is it’ll transform your computer into a Bluetooth control center. Bluetooth is finally starting to have some useful applications and more and more products are starting to use them. Bluetooth is a personal wireless network which offers up to 10 meters of range for secure data transmission with other Bluetooth enable devices. A few years ago, Bluetooth devices were few and far between. Today, they’re everywhere – in your PDA, cell phone, printer, notebook, etc. In order for all these Bluetooth devices to talk to each other you need a Bluetooth hub or control center. This is where the MX900 comes in as its docking station not only recharges the MX900 batteries but doubles a Bluetooth hub as well.”

Waffer PC Aircon PAC 400
OCIA :: Tuesday, December 07, 2004

“With the Aircon installed in the bottom of the four 5.25″ bays in my case, there is only about 1/4″ of clearance from the bottom of the lower rom drive’s tray. My fan controller and floppy drive are pretty much blocked off.”

SteelPad S&S Mousepad Review @ Hard-h2o
Hard-h2o :: Saturday, December 04, 2004

“Steel S&S bring out its newest mousepad,Steelpad.”Titans” Clan states that the perfect mousepad has come.In this review we’ll analyse this mousepad aimed at users that do an intensive use of the PC.”

Samsung Yepp YP-780V 256Meg MP3 Player Review @ Tweaknews.net
Tweaknews :: Thursday, December 02, 2004

“Some or even most new MP3 players are entering the market with FM radio receiving and voice recording capability. If you are tired of the music you have on the MP3 player, you can switch to your local radio broadcast till you upload some new media or if you need to record a voice memo or even a small business conversation, won’t have to carry around a separate recorder.

The Samsung Yepp YP-780V MP3 player I will be reviewing today encompasses all of these features and compresses them into such a small size that you could easily fit two or even three of them into one hand.”

Steelpad QCK + MousePad @ TechTastic.ca
TechTastic :: Thursday, December 02, 2004

“Just when we thought we had seen the biggest mouse pad, Steelpad sent us their QCK + Mouse Pad. This giant mouse surface measures an incredible 17,7in x 15,7in!”

BFG 6600GT OC AGP Review @ Neosekker
Neoseeker :: Friday, December 31, 2004
“We were able to squeeze 588 Mhz out of the GPU and 1.17 Ghz out of the memory before it cried for mercy and the NVIDIA driver control panel shooed us off. The 6600GT OC remained stable through hours of 3DMark05 and displayed no visual anomalies or any other sort of stability in DOOM 3.”

ATI Radeon X800 Voltage Modding Guide Posted! @ rojakpot.com
Tech ARP :: Friday, December 31, 2004

“As you all know, it is possible to voltage mod your graphics card to improve the overclockability of its GPU and memory chips. However, unlike overclocking, voltage modding requires you to physically mod the card.

Today, we will cover the voltage modding techniques for the ATI Radeon X800 graphics cards. This covers both the X800 Pro as well as the X800 XT PE. Just remember to read through the guide and follow our steps carefully!”

HIS X700Pro PCI-E Graphics Card – X700XT Equaling Performance
TweakTown :: Wednesday, December 29, 2004
“Today we take a close look at the HIS X700Pro IceQ Turbo including the impressive overclocking ability close to that of the Radeon X700XT which uses the new PCI Express interface and compare it against the older ATI Radeon X600XT VPU and see what is different and how it affects gaming performance in popular games such as HL2, Doom 3 and Far Cry.”

ATI All in Wonder Radeon X600 Pro PCI Express 256Meg Videocard Review @ Tweaknews
Tweaknews :: Saturday, December 25, 2004

“The All in Wonder X600 pro in its’ stock form would be deemed a safe buy if you were interested in full course buffet of multimedia features with a small side order of gaming. Although the card will easily handle older games with relative ease and acceptable framerates, I would not purchase this card if you were interested in playing the best games…”

NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT PCI-E Review @ PCmoddingmy
PC Modding Malaysia :: Wednesday, December 22, 2004

“All in all, the Nvidia 6600GT is a great card with a reasonable price tag. We expect this card to be price around the RM800 mark and best of all, it supports SLI and comes with an onboard video processor. Moreover, the 6600GT is quite small compared to its predecessors and runs cooler too. Besting in each tests, the 6600GT should be mounted on your Intel LGA rig or even on your NF4 rig that supports PCI-E. Certainly the GeForce 6600GT is the best in its class! However, bear in mind that GeForce 6600GT is pretty hard to find in retail stores (at the time of this review) but we are hoping to see them in stores soon.”

Albatron Mars PX915P Pro review @ ocprices.com
OcPrices :: Wednesday, December 22, 2004
“Similar to when Intel went from Coppermine to Willamette, the change from Northwood to Prescott requires quite a few system changes, not just a new CPU and motherboard. For those looking to upgrade their Socket 478 (or earlier) systems to a new 775 system, a board like Albatron’s “Mars” PX915P Pro can make the change a bit less painful, as your standard DDR can come along for the ride. How does the board perform? Read on.”

XFX 6600GT 128Mb AGP 8x Video Card
AMD Review :: Tuesday, December 21, 2004

“I wanted to do something a little different this time. I had this 6600GT video card to review, but I knew there would be lots of sites out there with the same old hard facts and figures with benchmarks of games like UT2004 and Far Cry. I decided to go a different route. I wanted to bring to you a review of the card, including the specs and such, but also wanted to provide some useful information as far as how well it plays the most system demanding game to date, Half Life 2.”

ATI CATALYST 4.12 Performance @ Hexus
Hexus :: Sunday, December 19, 2004
“As far as CATALYST 4.12 goes, the big news here is probably for those of you still playing Half-Life 2 in some shape or form, as this driver has certainly rolled out another set of fine performance improvements. Generally speaking, this driver set seems to be a stable and fast one, with most applications finding some benefit performance-wise, however small. The really big leaps can be seen for anyone still running CATALYST 4.10 or driver sets previous to that, as basically every test in our suite showed some big gains moving between 4.10 and 4.12”

Mobile GPU Comparison Guide Rev. 3.0 @ Adrian’s Rojak Pot
Tech ARP :: Sunday, December 19, 2004

“These days, there are so many mobile GPU models that it has become quite impossible to keep up with the different configurations. Therefore, we decided to compile this guide to provide an easy reference for those who are interested in comparing the specifications of the various mobile GPUs in the market as well as those already obsolescent or obsolete.

Currently covering over 35 mobile GPUs, this comprehensive comparison will allow you to easily compare 14 different specifications for each and every GPU! We hope it will prove to be a useful reference. We will keep this guide updated regularly so do check back for the latest updates!”

HEXUS.net News: NVIDIA’s GeForce 6200 with TurboCache Preview
Hexus :: Friday, December 17, 2004
Snip: ” Cute little boards, interesting technology that might make it into high-end hardware in the future (what about a 256MB board that can texture into system memory when needed, saving you the massive cost of a jump to a 512MB variant?), along with all the attractions of a well engineered small PCB and passive cooling, mean they’re well worth considering if you’re looking for low-cost PCI Express thrills and spills.”

nVidia GeForce 6600GT goes AGP @ TweakTown
TweakTown :: Friday, December 17, 2004
“A little while ago nVidia launched their GeForce 6600GT graphics card using the PCI Express interface. The GPU received great reviews around the web for impressive performance for the price but lacked one major thing – AGP support for those who had not yet made the jump to the new platform. nVidia has now released the AGP version of their 6600GT graphics card and today we take a close look at the product and see how it differs from the PCI Express version.”

Preview: X850XT PE & Response from ATI @ Hexus
Hexus :: Friday, December 17, 2004
“It’s when you consider the performance on offer, clearly the most that any single card on the market can offer, that the niggles start to fade from view. You’re CPU limited a bunch of the time with the board which means you’re really going to want to pair it with something like FX-55, but if you can afford one, you can generally afford the other. It doesn’t get faster than X850 XT Platinum Edition, it’s as simple as that.

Overall, ATI raise the bar yet again. Performance is incredible, the cooler made nary a peep above its settled speed in my test system and I have a lot of lust for dual DVI right now.”

Roku SoundBridge M2000 Media Receiver Review @ Designtechnica
Designtechnica :: Wednesday, December 15, 2004
“The Roku SoundBridge is the best looking networked media player we have seen to-date. It is incredibly easy to setup and is compatible with a large number of music services and server software. If Roku had added the ability to play shared drives or folders on your network, our score could have been higher. We find absolutely no reason for them to leave this feature out.

If you have an audio system that you want to show off, the Roku SoundBridge is the perfect way to do so. The M2000 and M1000 are nearly identical with exception to their sizes. So if you want to save $150 dollars or simply want a smaller unit, we would recommend that you go with the M1000. For us however, we can appreciate the larger display – it looks that good.”

ATI Catalyst 4.12 Performance Analysis @ TweakTown
TweakTown :: Wednesday, December 15, 2004
“Today we see the release of another ATI Catalyst driver suite (in fact the last release for 2004) and we will be seeing just how they compare against the previous 4.11 drivers. We will be comparing these drivers with our normal array of benchmarks except we have had a few new additions to our benchmark line including Half Life 2 and Doom 3. Is it time to change your Radeon drivers? Read on and find out!”

Samsung SyncMaster 193P 19 Inch LCD Monitor Review
Tweaknews :: Monday, December 13, 2004

“The SyncMaster 193P is not meant to compete with the lower end affordable options and is more targeted towards the end user that requires a large LCD monitor with designer aesthetics, a higher contrast ratio, flexible mounting and screen orientation and color reproduction sought after in the graphics and CAD industry. This is Samsung’s premier 19 inch model and they have done a great job at packing almost every feature needed by most consumers, yet still kept the slim and sleek visual appeal.”

AVerMedia AVerTV USB 2.0 Plus @ HEXUS.net
Hexus :: Monday, December 13, 2004

“Almost everything about the device is easy to use and set-up, which generally speaking makes it a joy to use. My biggest concern prior to testing the device was that such a small component would struggle to provide a good quality picture and sound, but it proved me wrong and then some. The only missing link in the package seems to be Teletext abilities – Although the player software and remote control both make mention of it, I could find no such functionality anywhere.”

ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition Review @ Beyond3D
Beyond3D :: Wednesday, December 08, 2004
“On the face of it, the X800 XT Platinum Edition seems like a bit of a tough sell – they’ve moved to double slot cooling, freezing out some small form factor users in the process, seemingly increase the retail price (although, perhaps this is just an acknowledgement that X800 XT Platinum Editions hardly hit that price when they could be found) and its one of the smallest performance increases from any refresh product released.”

ATI’s Radeon X850 XT PE Reviewed @ VR-Zone Hardware
VR-Zone :: Wednesday, December 08, 2004
“When you look at the R480 part we’ve tested today and compare it to NVIDIA’s current high end PCIe offerings, the winner is ATI on every front. With Catalyst A.I. enabled, the ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition is able to at least tie, but usually outperform the 6800GT in Doom 3 tests. In our other game tests, the results all swing in ATI’s favor, with the ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition fastest in every other test”

nVidia GeForce 6200 GPU – Surprising Budget Gaming @ Tweaktown
TweakTown :: Wednesday, December 08, 2004
“Today we are taking a look at the GeForce 6200 reference graphics card from nVidia which is designed to take on ATI’s Radeon X300 in the low-end PCI Express VGA marketplace. After taking a detailed look at the GPU and graphics card, we compare in our usual array of benchmarks against an older GeForce PCX5900 and Radeon X300. You might be surprised by the budget gaming performance like we were.”

Sapphire R9550 ATI R9550 128MB VGA Review
Overclockers New Zealand :: Tuesday, December 07, 2004

“The R9550 VPU should have a good potential for overclocking, as it’s based on the R9600 and is artificially clocked down to 250MHz. In theory, we should be able to clock it to the default R9600 speed without any problem. Sadly, all R9200/9550 VPU are locked since Catalyst 3.4. The only way of overclocking is to use a hacked driver or firmware.”

ATI Radeon X800 XT PCI-Express 256MB
The Tech Lounge :: Tuesday, December 07, 2004

“If you’re in the market for a high-end PCIE card, your options are ATI, or… ATI. Although NVIDIA has officially launched the 6800 series of PCIE cards, you would be extremely hard pressed to actually find one available for purchase. In fact, we did some looking around and were not able to find a single add-in-board partner that manufactures a 6800 PCIE card of any flavor. The only 6800 PCIE cards that anyone has been able to get a hold of have been NVIDIA reference boards, which as you may have guessed, are not available for purchase.”

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