Tech News January 2005

NZXT Nemesis Elite Aluminum Gamer’s Case @ Tech-Mods.Net
Tech-Mods.net :: Thursday, January 06, 2005
Quote: ” Today we’ll be looking at the NZXT Nemesis Elite aluminum gamer’s case that Johnny at NZXT was nice enough to send my way! The Nemesis Elite is NZXT’s newest creation to their product line. NZXT is a fairly new company but its designers have twenty plus years in the business and strive to create the ultimate gamers chassis.”

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Evercool Mini Watercooler WC-301 Review @ PC Review
PCreview :: Thursday, January 06, 2005
“There are a bewildering amount of water cooling components and kits on the market, ranging from custom made components to ready made kits containing everything you need to take the water cooling path.

Most ‘off the shelf’ kits cost in the region of £150.00 so we were interested to receive a review package of this all-in-one water cooling solution from vadim.co.uk which retails for £85.00.

Our review kit contained only a block to cool the CPU though further solutions are available for VGA and hard drive cooling.”

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XrayPad Thunder 8 Dual Surface Gaming Mouspad Review @ Tweaknews.net
Tweaknews :: Thursday, January 06, 2005

“Switching from the normal gaming surfaces (desktop and cloth mouse pad) to this Thunder 8 gaming pad was a great

pleasure. I honestly did not think it would make much of a difference. Well, I was wrong there . . . very

wrong.”

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Logisys Pitbull 500 watt PSU @ OCIA.net
OCIA :: Thursday, January 06, 2005

“I couldn’t find any specs on the rear fan but the low setting was about the same as a normal PSU rear fan. Cranking it to high created great airflow out of the back. Unfortunately this was quite a bit louder. I would guess its in the 30+ dba range; definitely audible over the other fans in my case.”

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Epox 9NPA+ (nForce4) Motherboard @ t-break
t-break :: Thursday, January 06, 2005
“With their AMD CPU based boards, Epox hasn’t normally target the mainstream user. Instead, they focus on the enthusiasts by generally providing better options for overclocking. With that philosophy in mind, they’re releasing their nForce4 based 9NPA+ motherboard and we test drive it today and find out how fast this baby goes.”

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Matrix Orbital MX421 LCD Kit @ Bjorn3D
Bjorn3D :: Thursday, January 06, 2005
“What device would a network administrator, an electronics gadgeteer, and a computer enthusiast all find that is useful and maybe even a little fun? Whether you are looking for a programmable device to display status messages, a car stereo, or a downright wicked cool toy to play with (that doubles as a fan controller), the Matrix Orbital MX4 series of LCD kits offers tremendous versatility for just about anyone with an imagination and a purpose. ”

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HighSpeed PC Tech Station @ Viper Lair
ViperLair :: Thursday, January 06, 2005
Tearing apart an ATX enclosure for PC testing annoying the hell out of you? HighSpeed PC has the solution for you.

“The Techie in me rejoices, a case that I can quickly build a system in and test its function, rip it down as quickly and start all over again. HighSpeed PC has hit the mark with the Tech Station. Not only does it fit the bill, you can rest assure your components are cool and protected from static shock the short period of time it will reside there…”

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Logisys Phone Smart LED Keyboard Review
Hardware-Pacers :: Thursday, January 06, 2005

“The only extra feature that comes with this keyboard is the phone smart LED feature that informs users of incoming phone calls. Many people use their monitor screen flickering as a warning, but this keyboard will actually light up and warn of the incoming call. It even works if the phone is not in the keyboard vicinity. They keyboard, as soon as it detects incoming phone signal will start the signaling procedure which consists of the keypad lights turning on and off. This is great feature for people who tend to leave their cell phones on ‘vibrate’ and sometimes can’t hear the incoming call.”

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News: Ultra Products UV X-Connect
Overclockers Online :: Thursday, January 06, 2005
Quote: The UV X-Connect is another high quality product. Ultra Product engineers are expecting to add dedicated rails, and hopefully in the future we’ll see some filtered rails and EMI Shielding like in the RaidMax power supply we’ve looked at. Afterwards there won’t be much left for Ultra Products to do on the X-Connect but let the sales cash in. This is one popular power supply and in many places still very hard to find. The sales in Canada and in Europe have just begun, but it won’t be very long until there will be one of these in many computer enthusiast’s systems.

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Promise Technology ULTRA133 TX2
Phoronix :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Promise Technology has long been known for manufacturing reliable IDE and SATA controllers. We recently had the chance to examine one of Promise’s ATA offerings the ULTRA133 TX2.”

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Seasonic Power Angel Test Kit Review
PCStats :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“A computer running day and night can handle fun tasks like P2P file sharing, distributed computing or code compiling, but people should start to take notice of just how much power their computers use. Now what if you knew that leaving a PC on all night cost X amount of money, would that change things? To answer such a question we need a test kit to find out how much power is actually being drawn to keep your PC running…. Enter the Seasonic Power Angel Tester. This nifty device provides everything you need to precisely measure the power draw of your PC and monitor, and even power efficiency of your PC’s power supply.”

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Corsair TwinX1024-4400C25PT Memory Review
PCStats :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“These two TwinX1024-4400C25PT Platinum Edition DDR modules are 512MB in size, and run at 550MHz. This memory isn’t as fancy as the LED-illuminated TwinX1024-4000PRO models PCstats burned in recently, but they are faster.”

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Da Blue – Lian Li PC-V1000 & Koolance EXOS Mod
SystemCooling :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“In today’s article I’ll be pimping out my Lian Li PC-V1000 case and the Koolance EXOS watercooling system, two items that even when stock already look great. My goal is not to make the mod so over powering that I’ll get sick of it in the next few weeks but to give it that extra kick which will make everyone’s head turn. To do this I’ll install five new LED fans, UV Cold Cathodes, rounded cables, power button, cut out a stamped fan grill, replace a digital display and LED’s and run blue coloured coolant.”

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Razer Diamondback Gaming Mouse
OCIA :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Some of the coolest features on this mouse are found in this control panel. Here we are looking at the overall sensitivity and the double click speed. Above that is the “on-the-fly” on/off switch. If you click this to “off”, then button 4 will activate/deactivate that feature. If “on” is selected, button 4 will not function. What on the fly does is enable you to change the speed and sensitivity of the mouse during gameplay.”

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The Tech Zone has a new article explaining how Voice Over IP works.
The Tech Zone :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“VoIP is the newest advancement in audio communications technology, and has a variety of different applications that make it useful. VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and how VoIP works is actually quite revolutionary because it streamlines the process of sending analog audio signals by converting them to a much easier to send digital form for transmission.”

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Crucial Ballistix PC2-5300 DDR2 1GB DC Kit @ InsaneTek
InsaneTek :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Crucial never targeted gamers until now. Rather, their focus was stability and compatibility. With the release of their new Ballistix line, Crucial is reaching out to gamers. Additionally, Ballistix is available in DDR and DDR2. Many enthusiasts were forced to jump to Intel to get the new PCI-E performance, which offers no real distinguished performance increase right now. To compensate for the “slow” processing performance, DDR2 was necessary. It’s true that DDR2 comes with high latencies, but it does provide great bandwidth. Like the recently reviewed Kingston HyperX PC2-5400, the Ballistix offers the lowest latencies available at ultra high frequencies.”

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Aigo MP-P750 @ HEXUS.net
Hexus :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“All in all, Aigo’s offering here is a tempting, feature rich one – Not only do you get music playback for your money, but also FM radio and recording abilities. The massive 20Gb of storage is nothing to be sniffed at either, and should be enough to hold more than enough music to take with you on your travels, holidays etc. You also won’t be ashamed to be seen out and about with this player – Sure, it’s no iPod, but its still a neat, sleek looking device.”

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Nikao Hero Mid-Tower Gaming Case Review @ MODTHEBOX.COM
MODTHEBOX! :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“The Nikao Hero Mid-Tower Gaming Case includes two front mounted USB 2.0 ports, an option for IEEE 1394 Firewire port, ON/OFF switch for the LED lighting system as well as an Audio and Headphone jack. Each port is connected using a bypass cable that must be connected to the appropriate motherboard headers. Consumers will be required to check their motherboard manual on the proper instruction for attaching each cable. The ports are hidden by a plastic blue coloured shield which can be pushed up when the ports are not in use.”

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Pentium 4 HSF Roundup
Overclockers Online :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Today we look at three new Pentium 4 choices on the market: the Zalman CNPS7700-AlCu, SilverStone NT01, & Spire CoolWave II. Accompanying our look are updated numbers reflecting some of the previous coolers used in recent reviews.”

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Media Player Shootout
The Tech Zone :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Back in the day, we had Winamp, and it was good. Unfortunately the original Nullsoft team has all moved on and instead of the hacker cred that Winamp used to have back when Justin Frankel et all were on the job it is now just another corporate media player with a hazy future.”

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The Radeon 9800 Pro To Radeon 9800XT Mod Guide Rev. 6.0 Posted!
Tech ARP :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Even with the introduction of a new class of GPUs from ATI and NVIDIA, your Radeon 9800 Pro card is still something to be reckoned with! In fact, many Radeon 9800 Pro cards can be given a further boost in performance by modding them into full Radeon 9800XT cards! Check out Chai’s comprehensive guide on modding the Radeon 9800 Pro into a Radeon 9800XT! It will teach you everything you need to know about identifying moddable Radeon 9800 Pro cards, how to mod them and which BIOS to use!”

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Matrix Orbital MX212 LCD Panel Review @ PCmoddingmy
PC Modding Malaysia :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Matrix Orbital MX2 was designed for PC enthusiasts and it is a great product especially for case modders. Even thought the LCD screen only supports 20*2, but it is able to deliver the usage and performance to user where it support many functions and fancy displays. This product is a bit pricey where the base unit already cost USD$99.99 without other accessories. However, if you plan to build a LCD display then I’ll suggest you get this Matrix Orbital MX2 since a custom made LCD might cost more minus the extra functions found with the MX2.”

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Designtechnica First Look: Lafayette MediaReady 4000
Designtechnica :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“The MediaReady 4000 from Video Without Boundaries is an integrated DVD player and Internet device which provides access to a wide array of different forms of media. It is designed to be tied into your existing home entertainment center, acting as a home media server with a 40 GB hard drive to store music, pictures and video.”

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ASUS P5GDC Deluxe @ Viper Lair
ViperLair :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“With the ability to upgrade yet maintain your current DDR, this motherboard provides enough flexibility to make it well worth a look. You will need a new graphics card since the 915 Grantsdale chipset doesn’t support AGP, replacing it with PCIe, but this statement rings true for the majority of 915 boards (discounting the AGPe equipped boards).”

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Enermax Coolergiant 430W Power Supply Unit
Techniz.co.uk :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“Ther is a unique Sanyo Denki blower 8cm blower directly exhausts heat from CPU, RAM, chipset, and graphic card to enhance system cooling effect. Even after the PC shut down, the blower will keeps running for at least 2 minutes to effectively cool down parts and hardware inside PC case. Thus, ensure longer product life time of hardware inside PC case.”

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Abit AV8 K8T800 Pro Motherboard
hardCOREware :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“I have to admit, I was somewhat let down by the bundle (or lack of) in the AV8 box. I guess I have just been spoiled after reviewing boards from DFI and Gigabyte. However after spending a few weeks with this board, and witnessing its unbelievable overlocking and monitoring features, I have to say I am quite impressed with this board! It’s lacking some bells and whistles, but for the hardcore overclocker… well…”

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20 Questions with 3DCool.Com!
Virtual-Hideout :: Monday, January 03, 2005

“We pride ourselves on being connected. We test all the latest computer technology to ensure that we understand the ramifications on our end users (overclockers, gamers, pc enthusiasts, brick and mortar retailers, etc.). Additionally, we are continuously globally sourcing new and innovative leading edge technologies to keep 3DCOOL.COM at the forefront of our industry. We are contacted by product developers, and VARs alike, to have us test their latest products to sell through our channels.”

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ATake PipeTower K7/P3 Review @ Phoronix
Phoronix :: Sunday, January 02, 2005
“When we thought we had seen everything from ATake’s Phantom Robot series, Wisetech USA sprung out and unleashed the PipeTower. This cooler utilizes a 1″ heatpipe to cool K7 and P3 CPUs.”

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CaseBuy EZ Power Supply Tester Review @ PC Modding Malaysia
PC Modding Malaysia :: Sunday, January 02, 2005

“Troubleshooting a PC quickly and correctly is an art mastered only by a select group of enthusiasts. However, more often than not, troubleshooting tools are occasionally needed to complement this “acquired” knowledge to find out the root of the problem. Hence, today I am going to introduce a power supply tester from CaseBuy – the EZ power supply tester. The main highlight of the EZ power supply tester is its ability to check if the power supply is faulty or in working condition easily and without fuss. Please read on to find out more about this product.”

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Xtrac Mad Dotz Review @ ap0calypse
ap0calypse :: Sunday, January 02, 2005
“After taking a look at Xtrac’s RipperXL mouse pad, I figured now was a good time to take a look at their Mad Dotz. What are Mad Dotz? Simply, they are little Teflon discs that adhere to the feet of your mouse to reduce friction and help your mouse slide easily. Let’s see how well they help.”

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