Tech News January 2005

 

Enermax CS-718B Maxflow Case Review at 3DXtreme
3dXtreme :: Friday, January 28, 2005
“We enjoyed reviewing this Case, some of the high points are the screwless drive rails, top USB ports, quiet 120 mm cooling, LCD with temperature and RPM readout and the overall classy, stylish look of this particular Case. Also, the included Enermax 465 Watt Power Supply that delivers as much power to each of the rails as any $100+ Power Supply Unit would. The only real downside to this Case is that not all Motherboards will work as advertised, you may not be able to mount the wind tunnel or may have issues with cable lengths.”

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[Phoronix] Prime Cooler Memory Cooler
Phoronix :: Friday, January 28, 2005

Summary: “Remember four, five, six years ago when we hardly thought about cooling, much less memory cooling? Nowadays, with faster and faster components, making more heat than ever it is critical to keep the temperatures down to protect all of your valuable investments. The product up today is the Prime Cooler Memory Cooler.”

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Crucial 1GB Ballistix PC4000 Review @ PCmoddingmy
PC Modding Malaysia :: Friday, January 28, 2005

“From the testing and benchmarking results on the previous pages, I can conclude that the Crucial Ballistix performs very well at the highest level and its ability to run at high frequencies makes it all the more exceptional and unique. For its sterling performance at a relatively low price of USD249.99, the Crucial Ballistix PC4000 DDR500 is a steal and should not be missed out!”

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News – ThermalRock OceanDome Aluminum Chassis
Techniz.co.uk :: Friday, January 28, 2005

“Have you heard of “ThermalRock”? If no, today we are going to introduce you about this new manufacturer. ThermalRock Incorporation was established by a group of multinational Research & Design, and Marketing elites from USA, Taiwan, China, Japan, Germany, France, and Australia. They specialize in the design and manufacture of aluminum, copper and metallic alloy products that raise industry standards, while remaining cost effective. Their expertise in thermal solutions and industrial design have assisted ThermalRock in creating innovative computer peripherals that users will appreciate and makes them the index of many followers.”

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Matrix Orbital MX424 LCD Review
VR-Zone :: Friday, January 28, 2005
“The Matrix Orbital MX4 series comes in a variety of drive bay insert colors. Colors such as: silver aluminum (pictured above), white, black and black aluminum. The silver and black aluminum inserts blend right into brushed aluminum cases, looking so good it seems as iflike part of the case. The aluminum finish is top notch and sturdy. The display is a 20 character x 4 lines LCD and is approximately 76mm x 25.0mm.”

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Neoseeker Leadtek WinFast PX6600GT SLI Review @ Neoseeker
Neoseeker :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005
“The single 6800GT does much better (as it should) in comparison to the single 6600GT. Nearly half the time are the framerates above 55 FPS but there is still a good amount of time spent in the 30-40 FPS and sub 30 FPS zones which means that the end user will have noticeable dips in the framerates.

The results with the Leadtek WinFast PX6600GT TDH SLI pair makes the choice between the 6600GT SLI pair and 6800GT much more difficult. A whopping 76% of the time has the framerates in the 55 FPS range.”

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Enermax CS-718 Server Case Review @ Overclocker Cafe
Overclocker Café :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“With the Enermax CS-718 having the mainboard mounted in an inverted fashion, this means you get in via the opposite side panel as normal. Peaking inside, we see the painfully simple yet very smart Wind Tunnel Design. The Wind Tunnel connects two 120mm case fans on opposite sides of the case in such a way that the CPU cooler’s exhaust is whisked directly out of the case’s rear with minimal contact with the rest of the ambient air inside the case.”

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SilenX IXtrema CPU Cooler Review @ AuphanOnline.com
AuphanOnline.com :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“When it comes to building a silent PC, reducing the sound of the CPU cooler is a key step. SilenX steps up to bat with a silent CPU cooler which promises to run at less than 24dBA. Let’s see how it stacks up..”

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Modding Bootcamp – Sleeving & Cable Tidying @ PimpRig Daily Disturbance
PimpRig :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“The DD team has a new installment to their Modding Bootcamp series. This latest article takes a look at cleaning up your PC’s wiring.”

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Evercool WC-202 Water Cooler @ Techniz
TechFreaks :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“Again, the WC-202 is another good design water cooler from Evercool. As for the performance, it was pretty good compare to the Intel stock cooler, you can refer to this water cooler cooling performance at the testing section. The only noise came out from this water cooler is from the both fan that blowing the radiator, but the noise is not loud. The water block of this water cooler is support the Intel P4 (Socket 478 and Socket T), AMD K8 and K7.”

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Titan Vanessa Heat Pipe CPU Cooler Review @ PCmoddingmy
PC Modding Malaysia :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“The retail price for this Titan Vanessa is 49USD, inexpensive for a heat pipe CPU cooler of this performance. From the previous page, we can see that the Titan Vanessa actually outperformed some of the more popular high-end heat pipe coolers out in the market today. Performance aside, the Titan Vanessa also has a nice package bundle, a great looking fan controller, universal mountings, silent operation, light in weight, easy installation etc. The Titan Vanessa is definitely a good air-cooled replacement for a water-cooled solution (which is much more expensive and complex). For those who are still deliberating on which solutions to choose from, look no further because the Titan Vanessa might just be the answer!”

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Sunbeam Liquid Neon @ Adrian’s Rojak Pot
Tech ARP :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“CCFLs are quite the rage with case modders. But are you getting tired of plain CCFLs? If so, why not check out patterned CCFLs?”

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Patriot 512MB PC3200 TCCD RAM @ eXtreme Hardware
eXtreme Hardware :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“Patriot is a distributer of TCCD module memory. TCCD (manufactured by Samsung) is considered by many to be the best memory that can be found in the world. In this review, we will benchmark a Patriot 512 MB PC-3200 RAM module against a Corsair XMS 512 MB PC-3200 module, one of the world’s most popular gaming RAM modules. Think this is an unfair comparison for Patriot? Think not!”

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ogisys Glacier 500W Power Supply @ PimpRig
PimpRig :: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

“The PSU itself is quite rugged and sturdy. It weighs in at approximately 3lbs on my bathroom scale, which (considering the acrylic and aluminum casing) is quite heavy. For reference, my all steel 470Watt Enermax Noisetaker weighs 4.5lbs”

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Firmware upgrade for the Plextor PX-716 Series DVD±R/RW drives
Plextor :: Monday, January 24, 2005
Plextor® Corp., a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media equipment, today announced a free firmware upgrade for PX-716 Series DVD±R/RW drives. The new software boosts recording speeds to state-of-the-art 6X DVD+R Double-Layer (DL) and 6X DVD-R Dual-Layer (DL), thereby protecting the investment of customers who previously purchased a Plextor PX-716 series drive. The firmware upgrade will be available in two releases. Release 1.04 is available today on Plextor’s website http://www.plextor.com. This firmware supports 2X DVD-R DL and 6X DVD+R DL on 8.5 GB DVD DL media, along with 8X DVD+RW and 16X DVD±R on recommended single-layer DVD media with Plextor’s AUTOSTRATEGY® recording optimization feature. Release 1.05, available March 31, 2005, supports 6X DVD-R on DL DVD media.

OCZ Platinum PC3200 Rev2 1GB DC Kit Review @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“Today we have OCZ’s Enhanced Latency Platinum Revision 2 PC3200. OCZ’s EL series focuses on low latencies at all of their rated speeds, making it an overclocker’s dream. The Platinum series is just one of the many groups of memory that OCZ produces. OCZ’s primary goal is customer satisfaction and their warranty assures that. OCZ does not only produce memory, but power supplies, cooling solutions, and a DDR booster, which allows the user to adjust memory voltage higher than what many motherboards allow. Read on to find out just how well the Platinum PC3200 Rev2 performs.”

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Akasa Integral 2.5in External HDD Enclosure Review @ Mikhailtech
Mikhailtech :: Sunday, January 23, 2005

“The case itself is very sleek. The body is black anodized aluminum while the sides are acrylic. Akasa claims that you can install a drive in this enclosure without any screws. Well, you can, but it won’t be very stable. To get inside, you need to remove the pair of screws in the front. Then depress the button on top of the front panel and remove it. Once that’s out, the rear of the case slides outward to reveal the PCB and installation rack. If you look closely, you’ll notice a pair of LEDs on opposite sides of the rear panel; these are used to display power and activity status.”

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Help the Tsunami Victims @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“InsaneTek and our sponsors (Corsair, SilverStone, OCZ, Sidewinder, Crucial, and Cooler Master) are here again with another contest. This time we’re dedicated to help the victims who have suffered from the tsunami disaster. Since we don’t actually know anyone who lives there, the best way to help is to donate money. The contest is for a good cause so please try to participate if you can. Every little bit helps.”

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Raidmax Samurai Black Review @ FastLaneHW
FastLaneHW :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“Lately, computer cases don’t seem to be marketed as computer cases anymore. These days it’s more like the tagline of an action flick, in an effort to market to the easy-to-please “hardcore gamer” crowd. We’ve seen everything from flashy expensive cars, to viking warriors, to aliens from outer space. But today Raidmax shows us that the marketing doesn’t stop there, so we’re having a look at the Raidmax Samurai case in everyone’s favorite color, black.”

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CoolJag JVC558A Review @ Phoronix
Phoronix :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“This is the second CoolJag product that we have had the pleasure to get our hands on. At first, we were expecting somewhat of a heavy heatsink and noisy fan but we were happily proven wrong. Let’s see how the Skiving fins compare not only to the AMD stock fan, but also to its brother the CoolJag JAC103C.”

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Shuttle XPC SB77G5 Review @ Hexus
Hexus :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“Shuttle are aiming the SB77G5 at the gamer, giving them recent P4 processor support in a small form factor, while letting them use existing AGP graphics and good DDR400 memory. The performance relative to DFI’s excellent 875P-T shows they’ve succeeded in the performance endeavour, using that processor. But if you’re a gamer, with the money to spend on SB77G5, why are you using Pentium 4? Shuttle’s alternate SN95G5 is more suited to you.”

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1A-Cooling SET Blacklord 240 Water Cooling Kit Review @ MODTHEBOX!
MODTHEBOX! :: Sunday, January 23, 2005

“The SET Blacklord 240 Water Cooling Kit represents the best of breed in terms of components that are both brand name and of high quality. While the components in this package are pre-selected, consumers also have the option of individually selecting a custom setup which best suits their own personal needs directly from the 1A-Cooling website.”

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NSLU2 – Easy Network Storage @ GideonTech
GideonTech :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“As the year was turning from 2004 to 2005. I was looking at ways to add more disk space to my home network. With costs of a new computer just out of my reach and having a couple of hard drives that were out of commission and out of places to even use them, I was in a jam. I was looking for a way to keep the cost down but be able to expand the drive space over all of my systems on the home network.”

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Kingston shows off PC2-6000 @ Legit Reviews
Legit Reviews :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“Today Kingston showed off samples of their PC2-6000 memory, which is the fastest DDR2 memory that we have seen to date. For those that don’t know PC2-6000 is running at 750MHz DDR2! The modules that we have are 256MB modules and carry the part number KHX6000D2/256 and come with a rated CAS Latency of 4…”

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Swiftech MCX64-V Review @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“Swiftech is one of the first companies that comes to my mind when I think of cooling products. They started out with Celeron heatsinks way back in 1998 and have provided overclockers with quality products ever since. Their innovative pin design heatsinks were, up until recently, considered one of the best performing products in their class. The newest trend in air cooling is the heatpipe, a phase change type of cooling that enhances the performance of air cooled heatsinks. Swiftech has not introduced a heatsink with heatpipe technology because their pin design isn’t compatible with it. They have stuck with the pin design and worked with what they have. Swiftechs latest heatsinks sport pins bent out in a flower shape to improve performance and reduce noise.”

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Mushkin 1GB DC DDR2 PC2-5300 Review @ Techniz.co.uk
Techniz.co.uk :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“The Mushkin DDR2 PC5300 memory modules are very overclockable RAM. Furthermore, it comes with a sexy black heat spreader. As for the performance, with the slightly loosen the timing, the RAM was able to hit 336.5MHz which is equal to DDR 673. That was an excellent result. But, we were unable to test it higher due to the limitation of the processor default speed which is at 3.2GHz, we have hit the wall of this processor. This Mushkin DDR2 PC5300 memory module is really a good buy at the MSRP at US $274 for a DDR2 range of memory.”

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Abit X300 SE Review @ eXtreme Hardware
eXtreme Hardware :: Sunday, January 23, 2005

“By now you’ve probably heard of PCI-Express, and all of its promises of speed and upgradability. What’s that you say? Don’t have money for that high-end, PCI-Express graphics card? You don’t need a high-end card, but you need PCI-Express? That’s okay, there are budget options out there too! Welcome to the X300 SE by Abit. For about $75, you can have a 128MB, PCI-Express card.”

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Soltek K8T890 Performance Preview @ t-break
t-break :: Sunday, January 23, 2005
“VIA had their K8T890 chipset announced for the Athlon64 platform quite some time back. If we remember right, it was announced before nVidia’s nForce4 as the first PCI Express solution for the AMD platform. However, boards based on this chipset are yet to make an appearance on store shelves. Today, we have recieved the first motherboard based on the K8T890 chipset and its an Engineering sample from Soltek modelled the K8T890.”

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Edifier R501 5.1 Six Channel Surround Computer Speaker System Review @ Tweaknews
Tweaknews :: Saturday, January 22, 2005

“This beautifully simplistic designed sound system shows Edifier, a relatively unknown speaker manufacturer, really knows what geeks want their speaker system to look like. Simple design is becoming more and more the trend in computer peripheral manufacturing. Have the product perform well, but keep the aesthetics uncomplicated.”

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Benq PB 6100 @ Overclockers Online
Overclockers Online :: Saturday, January 22, 2005

“Well here lies the real matter. The only real reason to overclock, is to game, no? And we are here online to overclock, yes? For this test I hooked up my gaming rig and ran the projector through its paces. What can I say; playing huge…is huge. Having a larger than life-size Gordon Freeman hand as your entry into his world is definitely a plus, but again there were issues surrounding the rainbow effect. Especially a game like Half Life 2, with light and dark being a key feature of the visual style of the game, it unfortunately suffers due to the rainbow effect being painfully apparent.”

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